The Road to Ruin (Dortmunder Novels)

The Road To Ruin Donald E. Westlake The Road To Ruin

1 DORTMUNDER SAT IN HISliving room to watch the local evening news, and had just about come to the conclusion that every multiple-dwelling residence in the state of New Jersey would eventually burn to the ground, three per news cycle, when the doorbell rang. He looked up, surprised, not expecting anybody, and then became doubly surprised when he realized it had not been the familiarblattof the hall doorbell right upstairs here, but the never-heardingof the street-level bell, sounding in the kitchen. Rising, he left the living room and stepped out to the hall, to see May looking down at him from the kitchen, her hands full of today’s gleanings from her job at Safeway as she said, “Who is it?†“Not this bell,†he told her, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the hall door. “The street bell.†“Thestreetbell?†Dortmunder clomped on back to the kitchen, to the intercom on the wall there that hadneverworked, that the landlord had just repaired in a blatant ploy to raise the rent. Not sure of the etiquette or operation of this piece of machinery, for so long on the inactive list, he leaned his lips close to the mouthpiece and said, “Yar?†“It’s Andy,†said a voice that sounded like Andy being imitated by a talking car. :ndy?†May said, “Let him in, John.†“Oh, yeah.†Dortmunder pressed the white bone button, and yet another unpleasant sound bounced around the kitchen. “Will wonders never cease,†May said, because Andy Kelp, who was occasionally Dortmunder’s associate in certain enterprises, usually just walked on into their place, having enjoyed the opportunity to hone his lock-picking skills. Dortmunder said, “What if he rings this one up here, too?†“He might,†May said. “You never know.†“It’s an awful sound,†Dortmunder said, and went down the hall to prevent this by opening the door, where he could listen to the echoes as Andy Kelp thudded up the stairs. When the thuds stopped, he leaned out to see Kelp himself, a sharp-nosed cheerful guy dressed casually in blacks and dark grays, come down the worn carpet in the hall. “You rang the bell,†Dortmunder reminded him-not quite an accusation. Kelp grinned and shrugged. “Respect your privacy.†< color="rgb(0, 0, 0)">What an idea. “Sure,†Dortmunder said. xactly,†Kelp said to May, and to Dortmunder he said, “I happen to know where there’s an empty semi we could borrow.â€

“You’re talking,†Dortmunder said, «out lifting and carrying a whole lot of television sets. Heavy television sets.†“Not that heavy,†Kelp said.:nd it’ll be worth it. You see, I also happen to know a guy out on the Island, recently opened up a great big discount appliance store out there, Honest Irving, not one item in the store is from the usual channels, he’ll take everything off our hands but the semi, and I might have a guy for that, too.†“Honest Irving,†Dortmunder said. “His stuff is just as good as everybody else’s,†Kelp assured him, “same quality, great prices, only maybe you shouldn’t try to take the manufacturer up on the warranty.†“Speedshop,†Dortmunder said, remembering his own after-hours visit to that place. “They got a lotta security there.†?or a couple guys like us?†Kelp spread his hands to show how easy it would be, and the phone rang. “I’ll get it,†May said. She stood, left her beer behind, and headed for the kitchen, as the phone rang again. “I know I’m wasting my breath,†Kelp said,;ut what a help for May it could be, I give you a nice little extension phone in here.†“No, thank you.†“One phone in an entire apartment,†Kelp said, and shook his head.:nd not even cordless. You take back-to-basics a little too far back, John.†“I also don’t think,†Dortmunder said, “I wanna buck Speedshop, not again. I mean, even before the question of Honest Irving.†Kelp said, “Where’s a question about Honest Irving?†“The day will come, an operation like that,†Dortmunder said,:ll of a sudden you’ve got this massive police presence in the store, cops looking at serial numbers, wanting bills of sale, all this paperwork, and whadaya think the odds are, we’re there unloading television sets when it happens?†: thousand to one,†Kelp said. “Yeah? I make it even money,†Dortmunder said, and May came in, looking worried. He looked at her. “What’s up?†“That was Anne Marie,†she said, referring to Kelp’s live-in friend. “She says there’s a guy in the apartment, says he wants to see Andy, just waltzed in, won’t give a name, just sits there. Anne Marie doesn’t like it.†“Neither do I,†Kelp said, getting to his feet. “I better go.â€

“John will go with you,†May said. There was a little silence as Dortmunder reached for his beer can. He lifted his eyes, and they were both looking at him. “Uh,†he said, and put the beer can down again. “Well, naturally,†he said, and got to his feet. ["_Toc156052568"]

2 SINCE THE TIME,a couple years ago, when Anne Marie Carpinaw’s husband, Howard, decided to walk out on her in the middle of a vacation trip to New York City from their home in Lancaster, Kansas, and while drowning not her sorrows but her befuddlement in the hotel bar she had met and taken up with Andrew Octavian Kelp, life had become odder and more interesting than it had ever been with Howard or in Lancaster (or in D.C., for that matter, where she- also partly grown up while her daddy the congressman was still alive), which meant things were usually pleasant and went a long way toward making life worthwhile. But now and again, in the orbit of Andy Kelp, life became a littletoointeresting, and this was one of those moments right now. The guy in the living room wasn’t menacing, exactly, but he wasn’t explainable either, and that’s what had Anne Marie upset. The doorbell had rung, and when sheopened the apartment door there he was, short, aged maybe fifty, bandy-legged and skinnyarmed but with a big barrelly torso, like a cartoon spider. He was balding, with very pale skin that had maybe never seen the sun, plus watery blue sunny-side-up eyes and a kind of blunt fatalistic manner, as though he would be hard either to surprise or please. There was something in his manner that reminded her of John Dortmunder, except that John almost never got mad, but you could imagine with no trouble at all this guy getting mad. At the moment, he was cheerful, brisk, and indifferent to her. “Hi,†he said, with a smile, when she opened the door to him.:ndy in?†“Not at the moment. I’m-†“I’ll wait,†the guy said, and slithered in past her. ;ut-†It was too late; he was across the threshold. With an empty smile over his shoulder at Anne Marie he said, “I’ll just sit in the living room here, wait’ll he comes back.†;ut-†Helplessly, she watched the guy look at the available furniture and go directly to the chair she thought of as hers. “I don’t know you,†she said. Settling into Anne Marie’s chair, the guy said, “I’m a friend of Andy’s.†He smiled at the living room: “Very nice. The woman’s touch, huh?†“Is he expecting you?†“Not for maybe twenty years,†he said, and laughed. =on’t mind me,†he advised her. “You go on what you’re doing.†“I’m not sure when Andy’s coming back.†“I got nothing but time,†he said, and suddenly looked bitter, as though he- reminded himself of something unpleasant. Something that might make himthing unp mad.

“Well…†She thought, maybe she should placate him somehow. Even though he wasn’t at all threatening, he did look as though he might get mad, even if not at her. The truth was, he barely seemed to notice she was there. She was, she knew, an attractive person, but he gave no indication at all that he- remarked it. Which was also unsettling. So, not wanting to, but feeling she should, she said, =o you want a cup of coffee? Glass of water?†“No, I’m fine,†he said, and pulled aDaily Newsout of his jacket pocket, all folded in on itself like origami. Unfolding it, he said, “I’ll just sit here, read my paper, wait for Andy.†So that’s when she left him there, went to the kitchen, and called John and May’s place, because Andy had told her he wanted to see John today, so maybe he was still there. She got May, and Andy was still there,;ut I don’t need to talk to him,†Anne Marie said. “Just tell him what the situation is here.†May said, “Whatisthe situation there?†So Anne Marie told her, and May said, “Ooh.Iwouldn’t like that.†“Neither do I.†“I’ll send Andy home right now.†Which meant Anne Marie spent the next fifteen minutes in the kitchen, a place where she normally didn’t spend a whole lot of her time. It was very small, to begin with, and what could you do in there except cook and eat? What she did do, for the next quarter hour, was fret.Wasthis man a friend of Andy’s? Was it Andy he was potentially mad at? Had she inadvertently permitted all kinds of trouble into the house? It was so hard, sometimes, to know what to do in Andy’s world. Finally, she heard the apartment door open, so she hurried out to the living room to be present for whatever happened next, because, of course, she was partly responsible for whatever happened next. As she entered the living room, suddenly breathless though it was a mere half-dozen steps from one room to the other, she saw that Andy was here, that John had come along with him and was closing the apartment door, and that the stranger was getting to his feet, doing origami again with his newspaper. And he was smiling. And so was Andy! It was with great relief that Anne Marie saw that smile, and heard Andy say, very white-haired man in America that owns a suit has testified in front of Congress.†;ut you’re right,†Chester assured her. “Monroe Hall was one of the people testified in those business ethics hearings.†Andy said, “So what happens? This Hall guy gets your old cell?†“Not a chance,†Chester told him. “You can’t touch these guys, every one of them is surrounded by a moat filled with man-eating lawyers. He’s still fat and happy

there in Pennsylvania. But here’s thethingof it,†he said, and Anne Marie saw that now hewasgetting angry. “The e Mari. âdeal he cuts,†Chester explained, “he has to makerestitution, partialrestitution, and the reason it’s partial, he’s gotta plead poverty now, so he can’t be a guy now that his hobby is million-dollar antique cars, so he gives ithere comes a charitable tax deduction, by the way-he gives it to a foundation. And guess who the foundation is. I mean, if you lift up the rock.†Andy said, “How does this affect you?†“The foundation takes over maintenance on the collection,†Chester said, “with some federal education money, and the foundation can’t hire an ex-con.†Andy said, “You’re out of a job.†“I’m out of everything. My job is gone, my medical insurance through SomniTech is gone, my retirement is gone, everything’s gone. I asked him, on account of my faithful service, find a spot for me somewhere, all of sudden I’m not allowed on the property, nobody wants to talk to me on the phone.†“Jeez,†Andy said. Chester shook his head. “My first career is still dead, my second career still contains certain risks, and I don’t feel like getting a job at a car service in Manhattan, to be the guy out at the airport holding up the sign:Pembroke.†Andy said, “You have a different idea.†“I do.†:nd you think it includes me,†Andy said. “I hope it includes you.†John said, “What is it you want to steal?â€

“His fucking cars,†Chester said, and nodded at Anne Marie.›xcuse the French.†["_Toc156052569"] 3 “ITELL YOU WHAT,†Monroe Hall said. “Let’s throw a party.†“They won’t come,†Alicia said, and walked on past him toward the stairs. Monroe had been standing about in the upstairs west wing hall, not thinking of much of anything, when his wife emerged from the music room with a triangle in her hand. Seeing her, the party thought had just popped into his head, fully formed, and now it was as though a big happy party was what he- been wanting forever. Forever. “Why not?†he called after her. “What do you mean, they won’t come?†She turned back to give him one of the patient looks he detested so. “You know why not,†she said. “Whowon’t come?†he demanded. “What about our friends?†“We don’t have any friends, darling,†she said. “Not any more.†“Somebodyhas to stand by me!â€â€/b> “I’m standing by you, dearest,†she said, this time with the sad smile that was only marginally less detestable than the patient look. “I’m afraid that will have to do.†“Weusedto throw parties,†he said, feeling very forlorn and put-upon. Nearby, the clock room erupted into a hundred cuckoos proclaiming the hour-ten (A.M., though the cuckoos didn’t know quite that much)znd Monroe and his wife automatically moved on down the hall. “Of course we used to throw parties,†she agreed, raising her voice a bit above the cuckoos. “You were an important and successful and rich man,†she explained, as the cuckoo chorus raggedly wound itself down. “People wanted to be seen with you, to have the world think of them as your friend.†“That’s who I’m talking about,†Monroe said. “Those people. We’ll invite them. You’ll do clever wording on the note, something about how the little unpleasantness is over and we can all get back to our lives again, and-Whyare you shaking your head?†“They won’t come,†she said,:nd you know it.†;ut I’m still important and successful,†he insisted.:nd I’m still rich, come to that, though I admit I can’t quite flaunt it the way I used to. But I’m still who I was.†“Oh, darling, no, you’re not,†she said, with the little sympathetic headshake and cluck that wasalsoon the detestable list. “What you are now, Monroe,†she told him, “is notorious. What you are now is a pariah.â€

“Oh!†he cried, terribly hurt. “That you- saythat!†“No party, dear,†she said. “We can watch movies on the television.†“What about the lawyers?†he demanded. “They made enough off me, God knows. What if I invitedthem?†“They- be happy to come,†she said. He smiled. “See?†?or three hundred and fifty dollars an hour.†“Oh, damn!†he cried, and actually stamped his foot. A soft man of middle height, middle age, and middling condition, his jowls rippled when he stamped his foot, which he didn’t realize and which his wife was too kindhearted to tell him, unfortunately, because it made him look like a turkey, and if he- known that, he might have stopped doing it. But he didn’t know about his comical jowls, so he did stamp his foot, and cried out, “I can’t doanything! I can’t leave the country, I can’t even leave thestate. I can’t go into the office-†“You don’t have an office any more, dear,†she said. “That’s why I can’t go into it.†“If you did go to the headquarters of SomniTech, Monroe,†she told him, “the remaining employees there, the ones who lost their retirement benefits,ere, tben might very well string you up.†?or God’s sake!†he cried. “Why can’t they all just getoverit? What did Ido? The same thing everybody else did!†“Well, a little more so,†she suggested. : matter of degree.†Monroe shrugged it all away. “Listen, what about the fellas? You know, the old bunch from the shop?Theycan’t high-hat me, they were indicted, too.†“If you will recall, Monroe,†she said, with the detestable patient look, “the judge was very forceful on that topic. You and the boys are not to associate with one another any more.†:ssociate!†he cried, as though he- never had any such idea in his mind. “I don’t want to associate. How can a fellow playgolf? I want to play golf! You can’t play golf by yourself, then what is it? Just you and these sticks and the ball, and you hit and walk and hit and walk and it’sboring, Alicia, it’s the most boring thing on earth, golf, if you’re just doing it byyourself. The whole point of golf is hearty laughter with your chums. And wherearemy chums?†“Not in jail,†she pointed out,:nd neither are you, and you can all consider yourselves extremely lucky.â€

;osh,†he said. “That wasn’t luck, that was money. Give a whole lot of money to the lawyers, stand back, let them work out the deal. So they worked out the deal. But how long do I have to-Pariah! How long doesthatgo on? It is like being in jail, Alicia!†“Not quite,†she said, with the detestable sad smile. “Not quite, Monroe, though I do understand. I too would like a little fun in my life. Would you like to go for a drive?†“Where?†he demanded. “If I leave the compound, you never know when some reporter’s going to pop out from behind a tree with those smart-alecky questions. Or even a disgruntled stockholder, some ofthemare still out there, too, with their horsewhips.†:round the compound, then,†she said. “We could take that Healey Silverstone, that’s such a fun car to drive.†“I don’t feel like it,†he said, and stuck out his lower lip. What he was feeling, in fact, was sulky. Since he- been born rich into a family that had been a long time rich, he- never known the need to suppress his feelings, so he pouted completely and might even have stamped his foot again, except he sensed that a kind of lumpish stillness might better illustrate the sulk he- fallen into. “Well,Ithink it’s a good idea,†she said. “Zip around in the Healey. Wind in our hair.†“I don’t like the cars as much any more,†he said. Кuse you had to let Chester go,†she suggested. “We allknewhe was an ex-convict,†Monroe reminded her. “He was one of my good deeds, one of my many good deeds that no longercountsany more. But, no. I have to pretend I’ve given the cars away and do all that foundationve givoun rigmarole so they won’t be lost in the settlement, and fire the only person who ever really understood the cars and could make them just tick right along. I loved it whenhedrove me.Idon’t want to drive me. I’m afraid of banging them into things.†“I’lldrive you,†she offered. “I’m afraidof youbanging them into things.†“Nonsense,†she said. “I’ve never banged a car into anything in my life.†ъmous last words.†“I’m going for a drive,†she decided, “with you or without you. In the Healey. I love that car.†:ssociate,†Monroe said, pursuing his own thoughts. “There’s that ssociate’ word again. I can’t associate with Chester because he’s an ex-convict, surprise, surprise, so now I don’t even get to enjoy the cars any more.†very once in a while,†he said, “you tap in a little salt, gives it back its head, gives it back its zest, you can pace yourself.†He demonstrated, tapping a little salt into his glass, and they all watched the head

improve. Chester nodded. “Pretty good,†he said. “Not exactly driving expertise, but useful. Thank you.†:ny time,†Stan told him, and sipped beer. :nyway,†Dortmunder said, “this time around, we need more than one driver.†Stan said, “Why? What are we taking?†Кrs,†Dortmunder said. Stan looked interested. “Yeah?†Dortmunder turned to Chester. “Tell Stan and Tiny the story.†So Chester told them the story, and at the end of it Tiny said, “Would you like it if this guy Monroe Hall got chastised a little along the way, as long as we’re there?†“I wouldn’t mind that a bit,†Chester said. “It sounds,†Tiny said, “like he’s overdue.†“What we’re here for now,†Dortmunder said, “is, Chester tells us the layout, we see how we can do it. Or, you know,ifwe can do it.†?or now,†Stan said, “let’s stick withhow. I wanna see Tiny chastise that guy.†“Okay,†Dortmunder said. verything,†Kelp suggested,›xcept the ‘R.’†“Uh, yeah,†Chester said, and told the rest: “Part of it used to be a dairy farm, there’s still a part with horses, there’s these special buildings for the cars, other buildings for the other collections-†Kelp said, ven if it would do any good. I’m just saying.†ѕsides,†Buddy said, steering around curves, keeping the Healey just barely in sight, looking from time to time in the rearview mirror, “he’swhat it’s all about. That was the agreement at the beginning.†“None of us,†Mac said, “thought it would take this long.†Ace said, “Sure. We thought he- go out sometimes.†“There used to be all these pictures of him in the magazines,†Mac said,:t the opera, at charities-†“Hah,†Buddy said. “Who knew,†Mac said, “he- suddenly turn into a hermit?†“It’s the publicity,†Ace said. “These days, he isn’t famous, he’s infamous, and he’s afraid to go out.†“I don’t know,†Mac said. “I don’t wanna give up, but what are wedoinghere?†:nd it isn’t just for us,†Ace pointed out. “It’s for the whole local.â€

“Hold on,†Buddy said. ven if only by nickname at this moment, it would certainly help us to move forward.†“I’m Mac,†said the fellow on the left: see-no-evil, of course. Buddy turned to look at the profile of his other friend, who now looked like a man in a swarm of gnats, intolerably pestered yet unwilling to open his mouth to complain. Buddy said, “You wantmeto innerduce you?†“I don’t know what this is all about,†cried speak-no-evil. “What are wedoinghere?†“Introducing ourselves, at the moment,†Mark told him, pleasantly enough. “What we are doing here in a larger sense, however, if I take that to be your question, I believe we have all been brought to this corner of the world by a desire for revenge against one Monroe Hall.†Mac gave him a skeptical look. “Youdidn’t work for Hall.†Oh, so that was it. Buddy was the driver, but Mac the natural leader. Mark remembered it had been Mac, from the rear seat of the Taurus, who- said, “I think we should do it.†Therefore, addressing Mac more directly now, Mark said, “No, indeed, we didn’t work for Monroe Hall, at least we were sparedthat. However, we did invest with SomniTech.†To Mark’s left, Os made that littlegrrsound he- often make when about to lose control at tennis. Patting that knee-it quivered a little-Mark went on, “It has been our hope, since pitching our tent outside the Hall compound, to, one way or another, recoup our losses.†“Us, too,†Buddy said. Surprised, Mark said, “Youinvested?†›verything,†Buddy told him. “Life insura">›vfe nce. Health insurance. Pension plan.†Oh, those things. They hardly mattered in the grand scheme of existence, after all, but Mark could just see that Buddy and his friends might treasure them more than they were really worth. Symbolic value, and so on. Sympathy at full bore, he said, “So you see, we are in a similar situation.†“I’m Ace,†abruptly said speak-no-evil, sitting up straight like a drum major, frowning massively at Mark. Mark smiled upon him. “Welcome to the group, Ace. Have you something to add?†“How do we know,†Ace demanded, “you aren’t a cop?†The limo, rented, like the Navigator, for its flash effect, traversed a climbing curve. The view outside, lovely enough, was sufficiently unchanging so as not to distract from the conversation within. His most open and boyish smile on his face, Mark said, О, all I can tell you is, no one in my entire life has ever mistaken me for a policeman.â€

Mac said, О, these aren’t cops. These are-whatchucallit-venture capitalists.†Raising a thick eyebrow at Mark, he said, “That right?†“Very good, Mac,†Mark said. “Yes, we are investors by trade, though at rather a low level, in comparison with some of the names you’ll read in the newspapers. We’ve had our wins and our losses, a nice win in a particular kind of rear window SUV windshield wiper, an unfortunate loss on a kind of nonflammable Christmas wreath available in every color except green-†Osgrred again, and Mark moved smoothly on:;ut rarely have we trusted any company as much as we trusted SomniTech, nor any smooth-talking son of a bitch as we trusted Monroe Hall-yes, Os, we knowznd I’m afraid we severely overextended ourselves there, so that our little company at this moment is in ruins at our feet.†“Too bad,†Buddy said, though without what sounded like much real sympathy. “Yes, it is bad,†Mark agreed. “Os and I are living on relatives, an unpleasant alternative in any circumstance. To make capital, as everyone knows, you must start with capital, and capital is just what we don’t have at this moment. All sources, familial and institutional, had already been exhausted before the final blow fell. Long after Monroe Hall was taking moneyoutof SomniTech, he was still urging us to put moneyin. Yes, Os.†Mark patted that quivering knee once more, then told the trio, “It is only here, with our hands on Monroe Hall-yes, Os, on Monroe Hall’s throat-that we can hope to recoup, to raise the capital that will finance a few extremely promising opportunities about which we have been made aware, but I’m sure you’ll understand if I refrain from discussing in this venue.†Os spoke for the first time, his throat partly closed by the intensity of his feelings, so that his voice had a rather clogged aspect: “It might be enough for you three to just beat the bastard up, but we need him to put the blood back in our veins.†Mac said, кt him up?†Oh. Had they been wrong ant coln wbout these three? Mark said, “Os and I, having been aware of you three for some time, had assumed simple physical revenge was your plan. Were we wrong?†“That depends,†Mac said, belatedly being cagy. “I know there are others in the neighborhood with that sort of idea,†Mark told them. “There’s a fellow sits in the lobby of the Liberty Bell Hotel down in Dongenaide with a horsewhip, tells anybody who’ll listen he’s a former stockholder, wiped out, intends to horsewhip Monroe Hall within an inch of his life. How he expects to horsewhip Hall in the lobby of the Liberty Bell Hotel in Dongenaide I have no idea, but there he is.†Os said, “Not to kill him, though. I mean you three. I don’t want you killing him. Not before he lays the golden egg.â€

Mac said to Mark, “You told Ace nobody ever mistook you for a cop. How many people you think mistake us for killers?†“Point taken,†Mark said.;ut you haven’t been hanging around here for your health. You havesomescheme in mind. I tell you what. I’ll tell you ours, and then you tell us yours. Deal?†The three looked at one another, then Buddy and Ace looked at Mac, and then Mac looked at Mark and said, “You go first?†“That’s the proposal,†Mark agreed. “Right now, if you- like.†“Sure.†As the Taurus three adjusted themselves, getting more comfortable because they were about to be told a story, Mark said, “Monroe Hall did not drain the life out of a large and viable corporation out of personal need. He did it out of an excess of personal greed. In truth, Monroe Hall was born rich, as his father had been before him, and his father before him. In truth, despite the devastation he has caused to all around him, Monroe Hall is still rich. Some of his relatives who trusted him have a bit less than the cushion they- always assumed would be there, but Hall himself is sitting on a pile.†Buddy said, “That’s what we want some of.†“Good,†Mark said. “It is always a good thing when partners share a goal. Now,ourscheme is dependent upon Monroe Hall’s offshore holdings, untouched by the federal prosecutors, untouchable by American courts.†Mac said, “Offshore holdings? What’s that?†єnk accounts, real estate, government paper, all in places closed off to American law.†Gesturing at the tinted windows, Mark said, “You’ve heard of them as tax havens.†Mac said,:nd where those dictators stash their loot, before they get thrown out. Numbered accounts.†“Numbered accounts, exactly. Untraceable, untappable, even unprovable.†“Not,†the constricted Os said, “with our hands on his throat.†“This is the idea, yes,†Mark said. “We know how these money instruments work. Once we get our hands on Monroe, we can force him to make irrevocable transfers fromhisaccounts toouraccounts.†Shaking his head, Mac said, “The minute he walks into a bank-†“No bank,†Mark told him. “In fact, no travel. Really, all the best banking these days is done on the Internet.†“You mean,†Buddy said, eyes clouded with confusion, “hack into his bank accounts?â€

Оrtainly not,†Mark said. “That’s why we need the physical presence of Monroe Hall. Given Os’s volatile personality, as you have no doubt remarked it, Monroe himself can be persuaded to make the transfers. After all, he knows his passwords, his identification numbers, just where to access which holdings.†Mac said, “You’re gonna put his feet to the fire, you mean.†“We considered that as a method,†Mark said,;ut it’s too hard to explain a fire in June. There are other ways. And Monroe knows Os, he can guess what he’s capable of.†As the trio soberly assessed Os, considering what he might be capable of, Mark said,;ut now it’s your turn.†Again they all exchanged looks. Ace asked his friends, =o we tell them? There’s two of them, so they can be each other’s witness, if they wanna turn us in.†“There’s three ofus,†Mac pointed out, “ifwewanna turnthemin. Why would we?†Ace frowned, searching for an answer, while Buddy shook his head and said, “Oh, go ahead, Mac, tell them.†“Sure.†Facing Mark and Os, Mac said, “Hold him for ransom.†“Ransom?†Mark considered that. “You mean a straight kidnapping?†:lmost.†Mac nodded at his friends. “We’re all members of ACWFFA, and-†“I’m sorry, the what?†“Our union,†Mac explained. “There’s over twenty-seven hundred union members just from ACWFFA lost everything with SomniTech. So the idea is, we grab him, we hold him for ransom, but we don’t want the ransom forus. The ransom goes to the union.†“Ten mil,†Buddy said. “What that is,†Mac said, “it’s a little over three grand for each and every union member.†“Outa his pocket,†Ace said,:nd into ours.†“I know three grand doesn’t seem like a lot to you guys,†Mac said,;ut our union members could use it, and it would be like a symbol. Justice got done.†mirable,†Mark said, and meant it. “I admit you surprise me, Mac, I hadn’t expected selflessness. I admit I’m feeling abashed. But I’m afraid there are problems with your idea.â€â€™m a id “Yeah,†Ace said. “We can’t get our hands on him.†“In addition to that,†Mark said. Os made one of his rare appearances, saying, “Who- pay for the son of a bitch? Not ten mil, ten bucks. Who- pay for him?â€

“His wife,†Mac said. Mark said, “It’s possible you’re right about that, Mac, but if her, surely she’s the only one.†“One will do,†Mac said. ›xcept not,†Mark told him. “If she tried to raise the ransom, what assets would she use? Her husband’s.†“That’s the idea,†Ace said. ;ut,†Mark said, “if Alicia Hall-that’s her name-if she reached out to her husband€™s unseized holdings, if she withdrew ten million dollars from anything at all belonging to him, and brought it into the country, the courts would take it away from her long before she could get it to you and the… your union.†¬WFFA,†Mac said, helpfully. “Yes, them,†Mark said. “The money might gettoAlicia Hall, if she asked for it, but it would never getthroughher. Our idea has a much better likelihood of success.†Mac said, “Then why- you want to talk to us? If you’ve already got your success.†Кuse,†Mark said, “while we have thelikelihoodof success, which you do not, so far we do not have the actuality of success. But with three strong, gifted, imaginative, and, if I may say so, noble fellows like yourselves joined to us, success might still be in the offing.†:n extra ten mil to you,†Os threw in. ›xactly,†Mark said. “So long as we’re having our way with Monroe’s offshore accounts, there’s no reason we can’t drop an additional bundle into the coffers of, uh, the, your union.†¬WFFA,†Mac said. ›xactly.†“What we’ve been thinking recently,†Mac said, “is, it might be what we got to do now is go in there into that compound and just bring him out.†Mark turned a hugely beaming countenance upon Os, who himself was very nearly smiling. “There, you see?†Mark said. “Great mindsdothink alike.†["_Toc156052575"] 9 ANDY KELP TRUSTED DOCTORS. Not so much on the medical side, though some of them were pretty good at that, too, but on the question of automobiles. As far as he was concerned, if you trusted a doctor’s judgment when it came to his personal wheeor€™sonals, you were not likely to go far wrong. Doctors have a deep understanding, for instance, of the difference between comfort and pain, so they’re unlikely to choose a car with a badly designed driver’s seat or mis-

placed steering wheel or one of those accelerators where your knee begins to hurt after a hundred miles. Also, doctors have a perhaps too-vivid picture in their minds of the aftereffects of high-speed physical impacts, so they’re mostly going to wrap themselves in products that will (a) avoid accidents where possible, or (b) survive them when necessary. Thus, when Andy Kelp went shopping in the streets and parking lots of greater New York for transportation, he always went for the sign of the MD plate. Today, however, Kelp had a second criterion to include in his search, which was that he needed not just a car and not just a doctor’s car, but alargecar currently owned by a doctor. This wasn’t because the car would be carrying five travelers, but because one of the travelers would be Tiny. It was, therefore, a distinct pleasure to him when, the morning after the meeting at the O. J., while roving the outer reaches of long-term parking out at Kennedy International Airport, a place where you’re pretty much guaranteed to have a few days’ head start if you choose a vehicle with no dust on it, he saw ahead of him a Buick Roadmaster Estate, seven or eight years old, an antique the day it was built, a nine-passenger station wagon with not only room enough inside for a bowling team but room enough for that team to bowl. And proudly below that broad rear window and door, a… yes! MD plate. This grand vehicle was a color not seen in nature, nor much of anywhere else except certain products of Detroit. It was a metallic shimmering kind of not-chartreuse, not-gold, notsilver, not-mauve, with just a hint of not-maroon. It was in effect a rendering in enamel of a restaurant’s wine list descriptions. But even better, from Kelp’s point of view, the Roadmaster was dust-free. It’s amazing how many people don’t want to carry their parking lot ticket with them when they travel, preferring to “hide†it behind the sun visor instead. Even some doctors. Kelp was happy to pay the two-day parking fee, explaining to the ticket-taker’s surprised look,›mergency at the hospital.†“Oh, too bad.†Kelp took his change, took the Van Wyck Expressway toward the city, and while stopped by the monorail construction phoned the troops. “I’m on my way,†he told them, not completely accurately. Still, they didn’t have that long to wait, at Ninth Avenue and Thirty-ninth Street, before Kelp slid the Roadmaster in at the curb next to them. Once he got there, it didn’t take them long to sort themselves out. Chester and Stan, of course, had to ride up front with Kelp, because they- be the drivers on the day and Chester knew how to find Hall’s place. Tiny, of course, had to sit on the back seat;allof the back seat. And Dortmunder, of course, had to open the rear door and climb over the tailgate and sit on the backward-facing final seat, as

though he- been bad in class. оn waiting long?†Kelp asked, after everyone was in and the door closed. : while,†rumbled Tiny from behind him. “They waved down a couple real doctors,†Chester said, between Kelp and Stan. “I think one of them’s gonna send a bill.†“We’ll fight him to the Supreme Court,†Kelp said, and accelerated to and through the Lincoln Tunnel and across New Jersey without looking at it, and halfway across Pennsylvania. " “There it is,†Chester said. “There what is?†Kelp asked. “The compound. Hall’s land, it started just back there.†Tiny said, “Pull off, let’s look at this.†“Right,†Dortmunder said, from way in the back. This was a fairly straight county road, rolling along with the low hills to either side, some of it farmed and some of it forested. This stretch was forested on both sides. The right shoulder was wide enough for a car to pull off, but just beyond the shoulder was an old low stone wall that suggested this land too had at one time been farmed, or at least settled. Beyond the wall was second-growth forest, tall but skinny-trunked trees with a lot of bramble and shrubbery underneath. “This is it here,†Chester said. “The main entrance-well, the only entrance now-is a couple miles farther on.†Kelp peered past Chester and Stan at the empty forest. “Where’s the security start? Down by the entrance?†“No, it’s here,†Chester said. “Not right out by the road, in behind the wall about ten feet. Stan, open the window, would you?†So Stan, next to the door, rolled the window down and said, “I don’t see anything.†“You can’t see the wires,†Chester told him,;ut you can see the uprights.†He pointed past Stan’s nose at the trees. “See them?†Stan sighted along Chester’s forearm, closing one eye. “Oh, yeah,†he said. Kelp squinted, looking past Chester and Stan, glance roaming among the trees; then all at once he realized he was looking at a slender black metal pole, about six feet tall. Off to the left, a little farther, a little farther, there was another one. “I see them,†he said. “Very discreet.â€

“They didn’t want it to look like a penitentiary or something,†Chester explained. Dortmunder, from way back there, said, “I don’t see them.†Tiny said, “What kinda wire?†›lectric,†Chester said. “Not enough to kill you, but enough to make you go away. Like a deer fence. But if a wire gets broken, there’s a signal in the guardhouse, tells them exactly where, between which two posts. And there’s lights in the trees, you can’ts. Andu c see them from here, but if the wire gets broken at night, they can switch the lights on, it’s like high noon in there.†“I don’t see them,†Dortmunder said. Stan said, “Just one wire?†“No, three,†Chester said.:t two feet, four feet, and six feet.†“Hey,†Dortmunder called. “I’m back here, remember me?†Kelp looked in the mirror and saw him way back there, waving for attention. “Oh, hi, John,†he said.:lmost forgot about you.†“I noticed that,†Dortmunder said. “What I don’t notice is these posts you’re all talking about.†“They’re right there,†Tiny said, and waved a paw at the woods. “I don’t see them,†Dortmunder insisted. Chester said, “Okay, John, you and I can get out, I’ll show it to you.†So that’s what they did. Stan had to get out first, to let Chester out; then he leaned against the side of the car, leaving the door open, while the other two stepped over the stone wall and walked in among the trees. The occasional vehicle went by, mostly pickup trucks, but nobody paid any attention to the parked car or the strolling men. With the door open, Kelp could hear Chester as he said, ver since you came back from Penn-†“Oh, that,†he said, and brushed it away, as though now he understood what she was talking about and it was nothing, nothing. “That’s not my problem,†he said. “That’s John’s problem.†“What problem?†“His.†:ndy,†Anne Marie said, “what’s John’s problem that you keep thinking about?†=o I keep thinking about it?†He considered that. “Huh. Maybe I do, from time to time. You see, Anne Marie, we wanna get into this place-†“I know,†she said. “That’s what you do.â€

“Right.†Andy nodded. “That’s what we do. Get into a place, get what we want, get out, game over. The thing is,thisplace, you can’t get in. I mean, you really can’t get in.†“So no game,†Anne Marie suggested. “Well, the thing is,†Andy said, “John came up with a great way to get in, a really great way. But now we’re stuck. We can’t make that way work. I mean, John can’t.†Anne Marie said, =o you want to tell me about it?†“It won’t do any good, but sur"rgb(0, be, why not?†He adjusted himself more comfortably in his chair, and said, “The guy has this huge compound surrounded by electric fence and guards, no way through it without being seen and heard. The guy is also a rat, so the ships are deserting him. Not the ships, his crew, his staff, the people that work for him. So he’s got like a skeleton crew there, and John’s brilliant idea is, we hire on. We’re working for the guy, naturally we’re on the property.†“Well, that is a brilliant idea,†Anne Marie said, “if he’s hiring.†“Oh, he’s hiring,†Andy said. “Or he would be, if anybody- show up.Ourtrouble is, anybody he hires has to be checked by the law. Chester couldn’t work for him any more because he was an ex-con.Allof us are ex-cons, Anne Marie, all four of us, John and Tiny and Stan and me. What we need is new ID, and we don’t know how to do that. I mean, we know how to go to Arnie Albright the fence and buy a driver’s license, a credit card, it won’t burn to the ground for another two, three days, but that stuff doesn’t survive aninspection. Not by a bankruptcy court or a lot of feds. How do you get a different identity that stands up? That’s why John is down in the dumps about right now.†:nd you, too,†she told him. “Well, maybe a little.†He shrugged. “Still, it’s John’s brilliant idea, so it’s John that feels so bad.†She shook her head, surveying him. “You just wasted three days,†she said. He gave her his alert look, almost like the old days. “I did?†“We’re gonna have to remember this, Andy,†she said.:ny time you’ve got a problem, you’ve got to talk it out with me. Mostly, all I’ll be able to give you is sympathy, but that’s not so bad.†“Not bad at all,†he agreed. ;utthistime,†she said, “I’m almost positive I can solve your problem.†verybody likes to associate with you!â€

“Well, yes, dear,†she said. “I didn’t want to make too much of it, but yes, it was mostly you he was talking about. His family talking about.†“So he’s just gone off, and left the cuckoos todie. What a cruel heartless thing to do.†“I tell you what, Monroe,†she said, “why don’t we go in and wind them up again? The two of us?†“Wecan’t wind all those clocks! Alicia, we need servants!†“Well, I’m afraid we’re having fewer… and fewer.†“You go wind cuckoos if you want,†Hall told her. “I’mgoing to call Cooper.†“I don’t think Cooper can do much for us, Monroe.†“He’s an employment agt colooyment,†Hall pointed out. “He’s supposed to find employees for people who need employees, and God knows that’s us. I’m going to call him now.†Hall’s office was farther down the corridor. Entering it, he made straight for the midnineteenth-century partners desk with its green felt inserts on both sides. (He used both sides himself, of course.) Rolodexes were placed here and there, but he didn’t need them. He well knew Cooper’s number. He dialed it, gave his name to the receptionist, waited a very long time, and then the cheeky girl came back and said, “Mr. Cooper isn’t in at the moment. Woodja like to leave your name and number?†“Mr. Cooper certainlyisin,†Hall told her,:nd he already knows my name and number. He’s ducking me. He’s avoiding me. You can give him a message for me.†“Sure thing. Shoot.†“Monroe Hall needs staff. Did you get that? Did you write that down?†“Monroe Hall needs staff,†she repeated, deadpan.

“Tell him,†Hall said, and slammed the phone down. Somewhere, a cuckoo rang. ["_Toc156052584"] 18 WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG, Kelp was seated at the kitchen table, reading a recent safe manufacturer’s catalog, enjoying the full-color illustrations. He knew Anne Marie was somewhere else in the apartment, and figured the doorbell was for her anyway, because it was probably her friend Jim Green, come to talk about new identities. So he finished reading a;urglar-proof†paragraph, smiling faintly to himself, then closed the catalog and was getting to his feet when Anne Marie called,:ndy?†“On my way.†In the living room, Anne Marie smiled and said,:ndy Kelp, this is Jim Green.†“Whadaya say?†Kelp said, and stuck out his hand. “How do you do,†Jim Green said. He had a gentle voice, a mild manner, a small smile, a soft handshake. Looking Green over, Kelp decided he wasn’t impressed. Anne Marie had been going on about how this was some kind of man of mystery or something, nobody knows his real name, he’s the spook’s spook, whatever. To Kelp, he just seemed like some average joe. Maybe even more average than most. :nne Marie tells me,†Green was saying, with a toothy smile in Anne Marie’s direction, “you and some pals are looking for new paper.†“That’s it,†Kelp agreed. “You know, it doesn’t have to hold up forever, only a few months.†Still smiling, Green shook both his head and a hand, saying, “No, excuse me, Andy, it doesn’t work that way.†“It doesn’t?†Anne Marie said, “Why don’t we sit? Jim, get you some coffee? A drink?†“Nothing right now, Anne Marie,†Green told her, and Kelp again found himself wondering what impressed her so much about this guy. Anyway, they sat, and Green said,:n identity isn’t the same as like a counterfeit passport or something like that. An identity isn’t really even something you carry around with you. Mostly, it’s a new you we put into the files.†“Okay,†Kelp said. “So it isn’t a question,†Green went on, “how long is this thing good for. It’s good forever, unless you burn it. It won’t burn itself. You get a new identity, it’s always there waiting for you, it happens someday you can no longer go on being who

you were before.†“Sounds good,†Kelp said. :nd,†Green said,:s with most things that sound good, it also sounds expensive.†“That’s why,†Kelp said, “I was hoping for something maybe shorter term, because that might not be so expensive.†Green nodded, frowning a little. Then he grinned at Anne Marie and said, “You come up with a cute one this time, Anne Marie.†“I know,†she said, grinning back. “I tell you what, Anne Marie,†Green said, “maybe I will take a cup of coffee.†“Sure,†she said, rising. “That was black no sugar, right?†“What a memory,†Green said. Kelp said,:nne Marie, while you’re pouring, I might accept a beer.†?ine.†She went away, and Green leaned back on the sofa and said, “What can you tell me about what you need this for?†“I can tell you a lot,†Kelp said, “since Anne Marie says you’re solid.†:nd I say the same for her. So what are we looking at?†?our guys,†Kelp told him, “have to get employed by a guy that’s under federal court observation and bankruptcy and ongoing investigations and all of this.†“You’re going toworkfor this guy?†“It’s the only way to get to where he is, and get what we want.†“Interesting,†Green said. Кuse of this guy’s situation,†Kelp said, “he can’t hire anybody with a record.†“I can see that.†Кuse ofoursitleft"> ofuation, we can’t apply.†“What you need,†Green said, “is identities without felonies.†“You got it.†“Let me think about this.†Green nodded to himself, while Kelp’s mind wandered. Then Green nodded more emphatically. “I suspect,†he said, “what we’re also talking about here is short money up front, and a guaranteed big killing after it’s all over.†“Well,†Kelp said, “there are no guarantees.†Green looked surprised. “Really? Usually, there’s guarantees.†“Well,†Kelp said, “it isn’t guaranteed tonotwork.â€

“Okay.†Green seemed to like to nod; he did some more of it, then said, =id you know Howard?†“I’ve knownsomeHowards,†Kelp admitted. “You thinking of any one of them in particular?†:nne Marie’s husband.†“Oh, he was Howard? No, he cleared out two days before we met.†“He was a jerk,†Green said. “I only met him a couple times, but it only took a couple times.†“Yeah, I understand that.†“He was a jerk like her father, the Honorable, that I knew a lot better. If you never met Howard, then you never met the father, either, because he was dead by then.†“You’re right.†“There’s women like that,†Green said. “They start out with a jerk for a father, they go find one just like him, get married. Some do it over and over, keep finding the same exact kind of jerk.†=oesn’t sound like fun,†Kelp said. “I was wondering, you see,†Green said, “if Anne Marie would turn out like that.†Kelp grinned. “I think she changed her MO,†he said. “I think so, too. She’ll be back in a minute, so let me ask you. Is it okay we talk business in front of her?†Kelp shrugged. “Saves me repeating everything after you leave.†“Okay,†Green said. He did the nodding thing some more. “Let me explain the problem,†he said, and Anne Marie came back in, with Green’s coffee and Kelp’s beer and a glass of pale stuff for herself, all on a little tray. “Thanks,†Green said, and Kelp pointed at the glass of pale stuff. “What’s that?†:pple juice,†she said, and went back to her chair. “Right,†Kelp said. “That’s one of your Midwest things.†She said, “Jim, do you know why I picked this guy up?†Green said, “You picked him up?†“Sure.†“I helped,†Kelp said. Ignoring that, Anne Marie told Green, “He didn’t put anything in his bourbon.†:hh,†Green said. “I put an ice cube,†Kelp said.

?irst man I ever met didn’t want everything he drank to taste like Royal Crown Cola.†Giving Kelp a fond look, she said, “You told me straight bourbon wouldn’t make me drunk unless I had one of those funny chemistries.†Kelp nodded. “Yeah, but you didn’t believe me.†“No, of course not. But I liked you telling me. Women like a man who puts in the effort to attract her attention. Lies, inflates his part, acts cool. Women don’t believe all the strutting around, but they like it, it’s a compliment to them that he drags out his bag of tricks, just for her.†It was Kelp’s turn to show a fond look. “You had a couple tricks in the bag, too, you know.†“I thought you were worth it.†They smiled at each other, and Jim Green cleared his throat and said, “Uh, I’m still here, you know.†They looked at him. “Oh, hi, Jim,†Kelp said. “How you doin?†?ine.†“I forgot all about you over there.†=on’t worry about it,†Jim said. “Happens all the time.†Turning to Anne Marie, he said, “I was just about to explain to Andy the problem.†“I’m sorry there’s a problem,†she said. “Well, there would be,†he said, and said to Kelp, “The identities I create are very tricky, and you need to find just the right little cranny in the system, and there’s not a lot of them. So I can’t use upfourof them-in fact, not even one of themor short money in front. Not even for a guy that I see is the right guy for Anne Marie.†“Well,†Kelp said, “it was a long shot. Thanks, anyway.†Anne Marie said, “Jim? You can’t help? I was sure you could help.†:nne Marie, I don’thelp,†Green said. “I do a professional job, and I get paid for it.†Kelp said,:nne Marie, he’s right. It was nice of him to comnne Maim e over here and listen, and if there was something he could do, you know he- do it.†“I been thinking,†Green said, “sitting here, looking at you two, sorry I couldn’t do what you want. I been thinking, and what Idohave, I have the people that I worked with already, I know everything about who they are now because I made them who they are now.†Anne Marie said, “What about them?†“Well,†Green said,›very once in a while, not often, somebody stops being who I made them for one reason or another, inheritance, a general amnesty, death of an enemy.

People go back to being who they started out as, maybe temporary, maybe forever. Now, I never done this before, I never even thought of doing it, but those identities are already in place, and I can get back at them again.†Kelp said, “You mean, we borrow them?†“That’s exactly it,†Green said. “Now, you borrow, you could be borrowing trouble. I want you to know that. I’m not in touch with thepeople, just the identities, so for all I know somebody may suddenly have to go back to being Joe Blow all over again, and thereyouare, the cuckoo in his nest. The photo on his passport; you. The fingerprint on his top-secret clearance; yours. And who he gets mad at is you, not me, for hacking into his identity, and some of these people have no sense of humor at all.†“I can see that,†Kelp said. :nother possibility,†Green said,:s long as we’re considering what’s the worst that could happen here, somebodyelsemaybe cracked the new identity. The actual guy’s gone back to who he used to be, and when the assassination team arrives, who they find is you.†“Ugh,†Anne Marie said. Kelp said, “What are the odds, do you think?†“Small,†Green said, “or I wouldn’t make the offer. Very very small, but possible. Like what you were telling me before, no guarantees. But you only want the identity for a month or two.†“Maybe even less,†Kelp said. “I hope even less.†“I could see what I could do,†Green said.;ut first I got to meet your three friends, and take their pictures, and do stuff like that. Would you all like to come up to Connecticut?†“We prefer to stay in the five boroughs, if we can,†Kelp said.;ut you’re the one doing the favor, so it’s up to you.†nglish was good enough for my father, and it was good enough forhisfather, and it would’ve been good enough forhisfather if he- been here!†Dortmunder headed down around the vocal end of the bar, where the regulars around the ranter had a fixed, glazed, genre painting look. ›nglish is a second language,†said in tones of deepest contempt and disgust. “So whadawe supposeta do now, learnMexicanor something?†  So Dortmunder went around the table the other way, to take the seat at Kelp’s right, as Kelp said, “Hey, John. John Dortmunder, this is Jim Green.†Dortmunder said, “So we’re using our own names, are we?â€

“Some of us are,†Kelp said. Jim Green stood up to extend a hand past Kelp as he offered a bland smile and said, “How are you today?†“Terrific,†Dortmunder said, and shook the hand, which didn’t do a whole lot of shaking back. Kelp said, “I’ll explain things when the other two get here.†“Sure.†Dortmunder sat, then looked past Kelp to remind himself what Jim Green looked like. Oh, yeah, right. He poured himself a glass of;ourbon†from the bottle on the tray at Kelp’s right elbow, then leaned forward again to see what Green was drinking. Beer, no salt. But here came the beerwithsalt, through the doorway, saying, “I- of been here sooner, only I started up Eleventh Avenue, and they got a whole shipment of BMWs comin in to the dealer there, nothin but trucks full of high-priced cars all over the place, backin into the windows, backin into each other, backin into the cabs all over there, sothenI went over to the West Side Highway, and there’s a cruise ship on strike at the docks there, pickets in Hawaiian shirts, handin out pink leaflets, whadotheywant with a livin wage, they got room and board on a ship, so I did a U-ey and went all the way down to Forty-second, and come up Tenth, and the way it’s goin in midtown, I think next time, I’ll take the Holland over to Jersey, up to the bridge, comedownhere. Either that or Staten Island.†By then, he was seated, beer and salt in front of him, to Dortmunder’s right, and he nodded and said, “Hi, John. Hi, Andy.†Dortmunder said, “Well, you made it, anyway.†“Yeah, at the very least.†Kelp said, “Stan Murch, this is Jim Green.†“Oh, hi,†Stan said. “I didn’t notice you over there.†“How are you today,†Green said, and Tiny Bulcher came in, carrying a glass of red liquid and frowning at some personal dissatisfaction of his own. Green looked at him. “Is he one of you?†Kelp said, “Tiny Bulcher, this is Jim Green.†“Harya,†Tiny said. “How are you today,†Green said, but more warily than before. “I’mstill okay,†Tiny said, and shut the door, th€™msti doen sat at the place in front of it, facing the rest of them. “Now we’re all here,†Kelp said,:nd Jim’s gonna tell us what he can do to give us clean identities.â€

“Right,†Green said, and could be seen to forcibly remove his attention from Tiny. “Like I told Andy,†he said,: whole new identity, perfect and forever, is a very expensive proposition, and not easy, and I can’t do it even once as a favor. But I got some lightly used identities that I can adjust for you guys if it’s just short term, but there’s the slight risk, and Andy says you’ll chance it, that the real owner might show up. Or, worse, somebody that doesn’t like the real owner could show up.†Dortmunder said, “I don’t get that. How does that work?†So Green explained it, and then Stan said, “There’s something I don’t follow in there.†So Green explained it again, and Tiny said,:re you talking about some bozo findsusor finds the paperwork?†So Green explained it again, and Dortmunder said, “If you say it works, it works, let’s let it go at that.†“Thank you,†Green said. Kelp said, “So what now?†“Now,†Green said, and lifted from the floor beside his chair a big black squared-off leather case of the kind photographers use when they’re away from home, “we start assembling the identities.†And he placed the case on the table in front of himself, folded the top back, and it actually was, at least in part, a photographer’s case, with a camera and some lenses and lights, but there were also other little dark machines in there, tucked together very neatly, that could have been intended to do anything from trim your toenails to encourage a confession. Tiny, not sounding pleased, said, “Whadawe got here?†“I need stuff for your new identities,†Green explained. “Photos, fingerprints, eye and palm scans, a swab for DNA.†Stan said, “Without even a phone call to my lawyer?†Kelp said, “It’s okay, Stan, it just stays with him.†Green said,:lso, I’m gonna tape-record little bios from you, where you grew up, where you went to school, any jobs, specialties, scars or things like that I wouldn’t see, stuff like that. The closer I can get the new you to the old you, the less you got to memorize.†Tiny said, =ortmunder? This is what we’re doing?†“He’s Andy’s friend,†Dortmunder said. “Well, he’s Anne Marie’s friend,†Kelp said,;ut he’s okay, Tiny, I’m pretty sure.†Green smiled, friendly with them all. “You really can trust me,†he said.“Youfon

Tiny considered him. “No,†he decided. “I don’t have to trust you. I just have to find you, if I want to, and you got found once, so you could get found twice. If we want to. So go ahead.†Turning his massive head to the left, he said, “This is my good profile.†["_Toc156052588"] 22 WHEN HENRY COOPER WASa young man, he was a ne.r-do-well, a layabout, an idler, according to his father, Henry Sr., and it was true. He loafed through high school and much of college, collecting Fs and Incompletes as though they were merit badges, until when he was twenty, Henry Sr. had had enough: “You willpassyour four courses this semester,†he announced,:nd I mean all four of them, or your allowance is stopped, your schooling is stopped, the lease on your automobile is stopped, the rent on your apartment is stopped, and all legal fees you incur for whatever reason will henceforward be paid byyou. Is that understood?†Well, in a way. The threat was understood right enough, but what to do about it was far from understood. Pass his courses, all four of them, the very first time? He was used to failing at least twice per subject before enough of the material could wedge itself into his inattentive brain so that he could eke out a D and move on to the next crop of failure. And yet, he couldn’t survive a minute without Henry Sr.’s cash, and he damn well knew it. What to do? At this time, Henry was enrolled in a huge Midwestern land grant university, thousands upon thousands of enrolled students, hundreds in every lecture hall, and all of it to cover for the school’s football team, which was the actual product being manufactured there. The football team won games, the alumni therefore gave to the university endowment, and the school sailed sunnily on. Henry was at this place instead of an Ivy League school closer to home, home being a well-off suburb outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, because (a) his father wasn’t going to throw awaythatmuch money, and (b) no Ivy League school would have touched Henry Cooper with a rake. So, given the general lack of rigor in this football factory, it shouldn’t have been that hard for Henry to scrape along somehow, except that he could just neverpay attention. He wasn’t stupid; he was merely disengaged. He didn’t have anything else in particular to do, but he also had not the slightest interest in what he found himself doing (but had to do, to keep supporting himself with Henry Sr.’s money), so how was he to survive this dra-

conian threat? The hugeness of the university is what saved him. Here and there among his fellow undergraduates were those who were both very good in a particular subject and also impecunious. Henry found four such who were willing to write his papers for him and take his exams for him in the large anonymous examination halls, in return for some small share of Henry Sr.’s cash. Every college student in America, prior to legal drinking age, learns how to manufacture fake ID, so it was nothing for Henry to provide his team with student passes featuring his name and their faces. “Now, don’t ace all this stuff,†he warned them. “I want to be a C student; my father wouldn’t believe anything better.†And so it came about that Henry Cooper became a C student for the rest of his college career, finding new substitutes when necessary, that Henry Sr. became a happy or at least a somewhat less truculent man, and that Henry inadvertently stumbled upon his calling: he became an employment agent. " Bernice entered Henry’s office, looking troubled and a little confused. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cooper,†she said. =on’t be sorry, Bernice,†Henry told her. “Just be sure you’re right.†A solid citizen of forty-two, a little puffy around the edges but kept in reasonably trim fit by regular golf and irregular fad diets, Henry Cooper held not the slightest memory of the sweaty subterfuges by which he- managed to obtain his bachelor of arts degree and retain his father€™s subsidies. (Subsidies that were now reversed, Henry financing the old bastard’s condo in Florida on the unstated agreement that Sr. wouldstaythere and Henry would never visit.) All he remembered, really, of his college days was the football games and a few drinking chums. Today Henry was a successful and respectable businessman who didn’t cheat in any way at all, not even on his wife. (Who would have known, in any event, and would promptly have disemboweled him.) These days, the Cooper Placement Service provided him a comfortable living and a position of esteem in his community. He rooted for his alma mater’s football team and donated to its fund drives. He was the perfect graduate. He was also an excellent employer, known to be fair and calm, if a little hazy sometimes on details, so Bernice knew, when Henry told her merely to be sure she was right, to wipe away as much as possible the worried look, replace it with a tentative smile, and say, “Yes, but, you remember, sir, you told me not to put through any calls from Mr. Monroe Hall.†“Oh, God, Monroe.†Henry touched the heel of his palm to his forehead. “That poor son of a bitch,†he said. Їter all this time, there’s finally something around him

that isn’t his fault. But there’s really and truly nothing I can do about it.†“I know that, sir.†“I’vetriedto get him staff,†Henry said. “We used to golf together. I’ve drunk the man’s scotch, when it was still permissible to be seen with him. I am not averse to taking a commission from his employees.†“Of course not, sir.†;ut there’s simply nothing I can do,†Henry said. “I hate to duck him, I’m not the sort to duck my responsibilities,youknow that-†“Yes, sir.†“{ut what could I say to the man? I can’t bear to listen to him plead. What if he started to cry?†“Oh, dear.†›xactly. So I don’t care what sob story he told you, I’m not in the office.†“Well, sir,†she said, “this time he says he wants to buy the agency.†Henry blinked.;uy the{uymyagency? Cooper Placement Service?†“Yes, sir.†“That’s absurd.†“He says,†she said, then hesitated. “Go on, go on,†he urged her. “I know it isn’t you saying it, it’s Monroe saying it.†“Yes, sir. He says, since you’re no longer interested in the agency, he’ll take it off your hands and find someone competent to run it.†“Why, the gall!†“He says, sir, name your price.†Cooper was not tempted, not even for a second, though he knew Hall certainly had the money to back up the offer. But all at once, he was also no longer angry. A fitful empathy with his fellow man had made one of its unwelcome appearances. “The poor bastard,†he said. “Hemustbe desperate.†?or some time now, sir.†“He’s got all that money, they can’t pin anything on him, and yet his life has gone to hell because he can’t get staff.†“I believe, sir,†she said, “he doesn’t actually leave his home. Or the estate.†“No, he doesn’t play golf any more,†Henry agreed. “Too much likelihood some other player would remove his head with a four iron.â€

“Ooh, sir.†Henry sighed. “I’ll talk to him,†he said. “Once.†“Line two, sir. And thank you.†She left, and with heavy heart Henry picked up his phone, punched 2, and said, “Monroe, I’m doing my best.†“Just name your price,†said Monroe’s voice. Henry had forgotten just how snotty Monroe habitually sounded. He held his irritation in check. “Monroe, I always provided satisfactory service in the past. I- be happy to go on staffing your estate, butyou’vemade it impossible. It’s your actions, Monroe, your notoriety, not any ineptitude or indifference on my part.†“When are people going to getoverit?†“People don’t get over it when you’re a pariah, Monroe.†“Why do people keep using that word?†“Well, Monroe, think about it.†“I donalign=>â€â€™t want to.†›very day, Monroe,†Henry told him, “I try to find people willing to go to work for you. Every day. Occasionally, I find someone.†“Not for weeks!†“Monroe,†Henry said, =o you believe I’m doing my best for you?†There was a long silence on the other end of the line, followed by a long sigh. During the silence and the sigh, Henry felt his empathy at last slipping away, like the tide going out, and grew stronger, more cheerful and relaxed. He did not think, “There but for the grace of God go I,†because, having never faced the equivalent of Monroe’s temptations (opportunities), he assumed he would not have fallen for them. At last Monroe spoke, not directly answering the question. “People don’t want to talk to me,†he said. “Youdon’t want to talk to me.†“Only because I don’t have good news.†“Listen,†Monroe said, suddenly perking up. “Why don’t you and Gillian come out for dinner? When are you free? Tonight?†“Oh, I don’t think so, Monroe,†Henry said. “Let me just go on trying to find people willing to work for you. Oops, my other phone.†And he slapped the plunger, to disconnect. For a minute, Henry sat brooding, then he pushed the button to summon Bernice from her desk in the next office. When she came in, she was looking worried again. Good. Henry said, Ñ•rnice, would you like to go work for Monroe Hall?â€

She was astonished, and then appalled. “You’reselling, sir?†“Not a bit,†Henry said. “I don’t mean work here, I mean work there. At Monroe€™s place. Would you like that?†“No, sir!†“You’re happier working for me?†“Very happy here, sir.â€

“The next time Monroe calls, I’m out.†Bernice sighed. “Yes, sir.†["_Toc156052589"] 23 WHEN THE PHONE RANG, Dortmunder was making himself a mayonnaise and baloney sandwich on white. He heard the ring, looked at his incomplete sandwich laid open on the plate like a patient etherized upon a table, and thought, what if I don’t answer? Then he replied to himself, it’ll just keep ringing. So he plunged the knife into the mayo jar and marched to the living room where, as predicted, the phone was still ringing. He answered: “Yeah?†“Dortmunder!†rasped a voice so loud and irritating that Dortmunder automatically yanked the receiver out to arm’s length, as though it had caught fire. From that distangth, as tce, the rasp was less painful but just as repellent: “Dortmunder! Where are you? You there?†Cautiously, Dortmunder approached the receiver to his head. =on’t shout,†he said. “Dortmunder!†=on’t shout!†:m I shouting?†But then, of course, he wasn’t.:ll these waves here, I can’t hear a thing. Can you hear them? The waves?†Then Dortmunder knew who it was; the same voice that used to rasp from the intercom on West Eighty-ninth street.:rnie? Is that you?†“Who else?†Arnie Albright demanded. :nd you’re still there? The Club Med?†=own in the islands,†Arnie snarled.›verything’s sand, and everybody smiles all the time. I know you’ll say it can’t be that bad, John Dortmunder, but it is. Never get sent down to a place like this.†“Okay.†“If you got the choice, you’re sent up or you’re sent down, take up. You don’t have to take my word for it. Ignore me if you want, go your own way, whado I care?†Dortmunder said, “I thought the idea was, they were gonna modify your behavior.†“I’m modified,†Arnie assured him. “Trust me, I’m modified, but it doesn’t do any good. The G.O.s won’t eat with me.†“The who?†“The staff,†Arnie said. “The help. Everything’s democratic here, if you believe it, and the guests eat with the help. Everybody mixed up in the same tables. Only, after a few days, the G.O.s won’t eat with me any more. They pretend like they’re gonna, but

then they don’t. They go sit with the smiley people instead.†“G.O.s,†Dortmunder said. “That’s what you’ve been saying.†“They got their own language here,†Arnie said. “Well, they do, anyway, they’re French. But even beyond that. So G.O. is staff, and G.M. is the rest of us, the guests.†“G.M.†“Somebody told me,†Arnie said, “it means Gentile Members, but that can’t be right, can it?†“I don’t know,†Dortmunder said. “I never been to a place like that.†“Sunlight gives me a rash,†Arnie said. “I hadda come here to find that out. But I got a little porch on my room, I can get airandshade, and this whole ocean is right here, it’s practically in the place with me, and the wavesdon’tsound like traffic, you know that?†“No, I didn’t know that,†Dortmunder said. “You sure you can’t hear them? Listen,†Arnie said, and apparently held his phone closer to the ocean because now Dortmunder could hear a faint slow repeated shushing sound that wasn’t at all like traffic. “Yeah, now I do,†he said. A little silence, and then Arnie said, =id you hear it?†“Yeah, then I did.†“Well, you don’t wanna talk to me,†Arnie said, “so let’s get to the subject matter.†Dortmunder wanted to say, no, it’s fine to talk to you, or no, it’s good to hear your voice, but there are certain lies that just will not pass a person’s lips, no matter how firm the intention, so what he did say was, “Sure, the subject matter.†“My cousin Archie tells me you wanna prepare a gift for when I get back there,†Arnie said,:nd I should tell you what kinda gift I- like to see.†Getting the idea, Dortmunder said, “That’s it exactly.†“I’m not interested in clocks.†“Okay.†“I am interested in music boxes.†?ine.†:nd I am interested in chess sets.†“I’ll make a note.†:nd I am interested in coins, but only if they’re gold.â€

“Good thinking.†;ut I am not interested in anything else. Well, yeah, I am.†“You are?†“I’m interested,†Arnie said, “in a ticket outa here, but I don’t think you got one of those.†“No, I don’t.†“Well, I’m not gonna take up your time,†Arnie said, “on the phone here, tell youmytroubles. Whada you give a shit aboutmytroubles? The fact is, you don’t.†“Uhhh,†Dortmunder said, and Arnie hung up.

It was amazing, really, how little effect Club Med had so far had on Arnie’s personality. And it was also amazing how much of that personality could come through over the telephone. It was a good ten minutes before Dortmunder got his appetite back enough so he could go finish making his sandwich. ["_Toc156052590"] 24 BUDDY SAID,“I hate to say this, but we aren’t getting anywhere.†Ace looked up, his hands full of jockstraps. “How can you say that? We’re in the guy’s house, aren’t we?†;reaking and entering,†Buddy said, and shook his head. “We never broke any laws before.†“Stalking,†Mac suggested. Buddy rejected that at once, “Whadaya mean, stalking? We’re just observing our former boss’s habit patterns, that’s all, nothing wrong with that. But this jock here-†Ace dumped the jockstraps back into the dresser drawer and slammed it with his hip. “-he isn’t a boss of ours,†Buddy went on, “he’s nothing to do with us except Monroe Hall’s a customer of his. What we’re doing here, Mac, is breaking and entering, and it’s against the law, and you know it.†“To tell you the truth, Buddy,†Mac said, “that part doesn’t bother me so much. What bothers me so much, we aren’t getting anywhere.†Ace had another bureau drawer open. “We’re learning a lot about this guy,†he insisted, holding up a neatly rolled Ace bandage. “What does it do for us?†Ace wanted to know. “We broke in here, into the guy’s house, three times now, and we’re using informationandequipment we got from a cop cousin in New Jersey that’s an ACWFFA supporter-†“Great guy,†Ace announced. ѕst cop I ever met.†;ut,†Mac said, “he took a big chance with his own career, and for what? We keep searching the guy’s house; nothing. We searched his car; nothing. Not even room for three of us to hide in it, by the way.†“Well, maybe,†Buddy said. Mac kept to his own thought. “We made a copy of his address book and followed up on everybody he knows and they’re all clients or doctors or other health freaks. We found nothing to help us, and all we’re doing is spinning our wheels, and God knows what those

Harvard boys are doing, but they aren’t standing around not getting anywhere like us.†“You notice,†Ace said, “they haven’t been in touch.†:nd we,†Mac said, “haven’t been in touch with them. Probably for the same reason.†Alarmed, Buddy said, “You think they’re up to something?†“Of course they’re up to something,†Mac said. “So are we. Why wouldn’t they be up to something?†Looking at his watch, he said, “We gotta get outa here. AndIdon’t see any reason to break in here again.†“Jeez…†Ace said, looking around the bedroom, once again restored by them to neatness. ?orget it, Ace,†Mac advised him. “We just aren’t going to find any stuff in here we can use for blackmail.†Looking hurt, Ace said, “That’s a nasty word, Mac.†Riding over that, Mac said, “No child pornography, no bigamy, no double identity, not even any overdue library books. Alphonse Morriscone is a Boy Scout, and I say we leave him alone from now on. Come on.†As they walked toward the rear door, their usual route through Morriscone’s house, Buddy said, “I hate to invade this guy as much as you do, Mac, but what the heck else are we gonna do?†“There’s other things go in and outa that compound,†Mac said. “The oil truck makes deliveries.†Ace said, “If you think I’m gonna hold my breath in an oil truck for forty minutes, you’re crazy.†Mac shook his head and opened the back door. “That’s not what I’m saying. Be sure it’s locked, Buddy.†“Right.†“So what are you saying?†Ace demanded, as he followed Mac out to the small neat back porch while Buddy made sure the kitchen door was locked. From here it was a simple walk across a lawn flanked by privacy fencing in rough wood verticals-if Morriscone did nude sunbathing out here, he didn’t take pictures of the factznd through the hedge at the back to the unoccupied house on the next block with theFOR SALE sign out front. The way it was set up, they could get in and out of Alphonse Morriscone’s home unseen any time they wanted. The only problem was, there was no reason to want to. As they walked from Morriscone’s house around the for-sale house and down the street to where they- parked the Taurus, Mac said, “It isn’t just oil deliveries. They get food to that house, they send their dry cleaning out.â€

Buddy said, “You’ve watched their procedures, Mac. All those delivery trucks get completely searched by those rent-a-cops at the gate. Boy Scout Morriscone is the only one who just drives in.†Ace said, “Well, there’s some employees. Staffers.†“No use to us,†Mac said. :nd the wife does, too,†Ace said. They looked at him. Buddy said, “Now you wanna kidnap thewife? The three of us go into the estate hidden in one of those little dinky cars she drives?†“I could hide under her skirt,†Ace offered with a big grin around at everybody, which fell away when he saw they didn’t think that was funny. Morosely, Mac said, “Maybe we oughta try to find the Harvards.†" “Look at those capering apes,†Or="rgbpess said, binoculars to his eyes. “You probably mean Ace,†Mark said, since he didn’t have binoculars to his eyes. “He’s the worst of them.†“God,†Os said. “Not only proles, but useless.†“I think it’s our friend Morriscone who’s useless.†Mark suggested. “Wecould find nothing in his background that we could use against the man, and by now, after three B and Es, it’s becoming quite clear our friends in the labor movement haven’t found anything in his foreground, either.†“Time is going by,†Os said.

Across the way, the trio were getting into their Taurus. Watching them through the naked eye, Mark said, “We have tousethose people. Somehow use them. Use them somehow.†“Good,†Os said. ["_Toc156052591"] 25 GIVEN HER UPBRINGINGin Kansas and D.C., Anne Marie’s automatic response to any gathering of individuals was to turn it into a social occasion-why miss an opportunity to work a room? But Andy absolutely refused to go along with the idea in re the upcoming threeP.M. meeting in their apartment in which Jim Green would give Andy and the others their new identities. “It isn’t a party, Anne Marie,†he explained, not unkindly. “It’s more of a huddle-type thing, you know, informational.†“I’m not saying aparty,†she insisted, although she knew she was. “Just a few hors d’oeuvres, maybe a glass of white wine. You can’t drink beer and bourbon forever.†Looking startled, he said, “I can’t?†“I should think Jim would feel insulted,†Anne Marie said, “when he’s doing us this big favor, and he comes all the way down from Connecticut, and we don’t even offer him a pвtй.†“We’re not going to anopening, Anne Marie,†Andy said,:nd none of us is gonna want pвtй on his new identity papers. Green is gonna bring the stuff down, hand it out, explain what he’s gotta explain, and that’s it. Everybody goes away.†She shook her head. “You want people to come into our home,†she said,:nd sit around and talk, and then just go away again, and nobody eats anything, and nobody chats about anything, and nobody drinks anything but beer.†“Now you got it,†Andy said. " But she stuck around anyway, just in case a social aspect should happen to arise, in which case her hostessing abilities would be needed after all. And Stan Murch was the first to arrive. She greeted him at the door: “Hi, Stan.†“So now it’s Brooklyn,†Stan said, coming in. “I always figured, Canarsie€™s a convenient place to live, you got a lotta ways to get to Manhattan, youo live, y got Flatlands to Flatbush to the Manhattan Bridge, only Flatbush can get a little slow, so sometimes I do Rockaway Parkway to Eastern Parkway, and not RockawayAvenue, that takes you

to Bushwick, you don’t wanna go to Bushwick.†“No, I don’t,†Anne Marie agreed. “Would you like something to drink?†But Stan wasn’t done. “So that’s what I did today,†he said, “only you got a mess at Grand Army Plaza, they’re tearing everything up in front of the library there, you can’t get through, so I eased around to Washington Avenue, up past the BQE to hang the left on Flushing, and again you can’t get through. Why? A demonstration against the Naval Reserve Center, that’s two blocks down to the right, the cops won’t let the demonstrators any closer than Washington. I’mbackingouta there, some guy pulls up on me and honks. I gotta getoutathe car, explain to this bozo that all those yelling people and cops and picket signs he could see if he had working eyes and not just a working horn means you can’tgothat way. So he finally moves over to let me back up, then he jumps in where I was, cackling like an idiot, he put one over on me, he’s probably still there.†: glass of wine?†“So I comeunderthe BQE on Park,†Stan told her,:nd Tillary, and did the Brooklyn Bridge instead, and after that Manhattan was a snap.†“Stan,†Anne Marie said, “you got here first.†“So it could of been worse.†: beer?†she asked him. “No, thanks,†he said. “I still got some driving to do today,†and the doorbell rang. This time, it was Tiny, and he had with him a small but lovely bouquet of pink roses. “Here,†he said, and handed them over. “Why, thank you, Tiny,†she said. “That’s very thoughtful.†“Some girl on the street,†he told her, “threw them at her boyfriend just before the cops showed up. I figured they shouldn’t go to waste.†“Oh. Well, thank you.†:ny time.†Tiny finished coming in, but before Anne Marie could shut the door Jim Green was there, smiling, saying, “Hello, Anne Marie, how are you today?†“Just fine,†she said, and would have closed the door but John was suddenly there. “Oh,†she said. =id you two come together?†John looked confused. Frowning toward Jim, he said, “I don’t think so.†“No, we didn’t,†Jim said, and at last Anne Marie could complete the closing of the door. And here came Andy from deeper in the apartment, saying, “Hey, we’re all here. Anybody want a beer?â€

“Not me,†Stan said. “Maybe later,†John said. “What we want,†Tiny said, looking at Jim, “is to see who we are.†verybodyknowsyou€™re the most selfish man in the world, I mean that’s what you’re famous for, but why domelike this? What didyouget out of it? Was it just forfun?†Lips moving, mouthing the angry sentences, he turned in at the entrance and stopped at the guardshack. The sullen guard came out as usual, but today Flip didn’t give him a friendly greeting. Today he didn’t give him a greeting at all, or a word at all. Staring straight ahead, his telling-off of Monroe Hall still circling in his brain, he merely held his driver’s license up where the troglodyte could read it, if he could read. The man took a long time, unmoving, standing beside the open window of the Subaru, but Flip didn’t care. Take forever if you want, you creep. Ban me from the estate, I’ll be just as happy to go home. Whether or not the guard could read Flip’s license, he could probably read Flip’s face, because he finally stopped waiting for Flip to do or say something, but just turned around to lumber back into his cave, presumably to make the call to the Big House. Flip put his license away, then glowered at the bar directly in front of him, waiting for it to lift. When it finally did start its upward arc, the guard came back out, leaned down close to the window, and said, “You wanna be more friendly.†Flip looked him up and down. “Toyou?†Then he drove through and onto the estate. Well,thatmade him feel a little better, for a minute anyway, until, as he approached the Big House, he saw the front door open and Hall step out into the sunlight to wave at him. Today’s sweat-set was Day-Glo orange, so that Hall looked less like a Mafia subcapo and more like a weather balloon, slightly deflated. I’llshow you some weather, Flip mouthed, as he parked the Subaru in its usual place, got out, and threw his canvas bag over his shoulder with such force he hurt his back. Smarting even more, blaming Hall for this as well, he marched around to the front door, where Hall greeted him with his usual smarmy smile, saying, “Right on time, Flip. As ever. Come in, come in. I did ask you one time if you rode horses, didn’t I?†Thrown off stride, Flip tried to work out that question and its answer while Hall shut the door and they started toward the central staircase. “I don’t,†he decided was the clearest response, then expanded on it: “Ride horses.†“Right, I remember,†Hall said. They moved up the stairs. “You remember that, I told you I have these horses, beautiful beasts, but I can’t find an instructor. This is aperfecttime of year, Flip, perfect time of year. Up on that horse, ride over hill and dale, get an entirely new perspective.â€

“I’ve never done it,†Flip said.NowI’ll tell him off, he assured himself, but the instant didn’t seem just right somehow. Moving down the wide upstairs corridor, Hall said, “I know you told me I spstairld houldn’t weigh myself every minute, but Ididweigh myself this morning, and Flip, I’m down three pounds! From a month ago.†“Very good,†Flip said, and somewhere a cuckoo commented threefold. “Oh, there’s that damn thing again,†Hall complained. “Sometimes, Flip, I think I should just let it run down, not have it wound any more, not have to listen to it get things wrong all the time, but I don’t know, I just can’t do it. It would be like killing the poor little thing. I know, I know, you’ll say I’m just a sentimental boob, but there it is. I’ve gotta let that clock do its thing.†Sentimental! Following Hall into the gym, Flip gnashed his teeth, and made a dozen brutal crushing remarks that somehow never quite passed his lips. It went on like that, an hour of fuming silence. He got minor revenges by pushing the treadmill beyond Hall’s capacity, by overloading the weight machines, by being a bit more snappish and imperious than usual, so that by the end of the hour Hall was a sodden orange orange with all the juice on the outside. But the challenging of the man, the confronting him, the direct accusation, somehow that just never emerged. Flip boiled with it, he seethed with it, if he were a kettle his lid would be doing a polka, but it was just not possible for him to pour his fury all over Monroe Hall. At the end, though, he did manage, though obliquely, to get to the subject of his distress: “I won’t be able to make our session Wednesday.†Hall looked stricken; good. “Oh, Flip,†he said. “You have to.†“No, what Ihaveto do,†Flip told him, “is go to Harrisburg to meet with somebody at the Internal Revenue office.†“Oh, dear, Flip,†Hall said, looking as concerned as though he were an actual human being with actual human emotions, “I hope you aren’t in any trouble.†“Turns out,†Flip said, packing his canvas bag, not looking at the rat, “I am. Turns out, some cash income I received was reported to the IRS.†;ut, Flip, naturally,†Hall said. Now Flip had to look at him, and the man was as innocent as a newborn. Into that perspiring baby face, Flip said, =o people report their cash income to the IRS?†“Well, I certainly hope so,†Hall said. He paused briefly to wipe that face with a towel and pant a bit, then said, “It would be unpatriotic not to report your income, pay your taxes.â€

“Unpa-Unpa-†Flip could only sputter at the outrageousness of thisfelon, this worldclasscheat, this despicablerotter, telling Flip Morriscone he was unpatriotic! Unpatriotic! “I certainly hope,†Hall was going on, as though Flip were not doing a meltdown directly in front of him, “you declare whatIpay you, because of course I reportallmy expenses. All my expenses, Flip, whether they’re deductible or not. I believe in transparency, and you should, too.†Flip slowly shook his head, unable to speak. Hall lifted a chiding finger. “Now, Flip,†he said, “take it from one who knows, one who’s been there. The best thing for you to do at this hearing is just come clean, pay whatever they want you to pay, and put it behind you.†The chiding finger waggled.:nd don’t play fast and loose again, Flip, that’smyadvice.â€

How he got out of that building without strangling Monroe Hall then and there Flip would never know. How he got out of there atallhe couldn’t understand, and had no memory of the corridor, the stairs, the front door or anything else until he found himself driving the Subaru past the sullen guardwhose look toward Flip was now reproachful, if you pleaseznd out of the estate. He made the turn. He drove away, toward his next appointment. At last, he spoke, through gritted teeth. “Revenge,†he growled. “Revenge.†["_Toc156052594"] 28 IN A WAY,Marcie felt sorry for Monroe Hall. In the seventeen years she- worked as an interviewer for Cooper Placement Service, she- never seen an employer who was so thoroughly disliked. How bad could the man be? Mostly, particularly in a rural area like this one, people just sucked it up and got on with it. “What the heck, it’s a job,†was the general opinion about almost anything. In her time, she- placed personal maids with Iranian ex-wives, chauffeurs who were required to wear bulletproof vests when on the job for notorious drug dealers, gardeners for the weekend houses of top-level fashionistas out of New York, cooks for Ecuadorian aristocrats, dressers for rock stars, secretaries to disgraced politicians writing their truthless memoirs, and not one of those people had ever produced as negative a reaction in a prospective employee as almost everybody gave to the name Monroe Hall. “Oh, no, not there, I don’t need a jobthatbad.†;ut what’s wrong with-†“Let me put it this way, miss. I wouldn’t go to work for that bastard if he paid me.†“Hewillpay you, it’s a job, you can-†“Not for me. What else chu got?†:rchivist for a professional wrestler called UltraMud.†“Oh,Iheard a him! Sure! What the heck, it’s a job.†How many vacancies were there out to Monroe Hall’s place by now? Attrition was just steadily eating into the workforce out there. Marcie believed, as of this morning, Tuesday, June 14, there were seventeen job slots unfilled out at the estate. Even two openings in security, and you wereneversupposed to run short on security applicants, particularly if you

didn’t worry too much about the prior-convictions check. What it added up to, a girl could find herself feeling sorry for Monroe Hall. Oh, could fi of course, only theoretically. She herself wouldn’t work for the son of a bitch on a bet, the way he rode roughshod over family, friend, employee, and the government alike. She was perfectly happy right where she was at Cooper Placement Service, and even if she weren€™t, she- rather work at the Last Call coal mine over in Golgotha City, where filling out your last will and testament was part of the job application, than work for that=on’tcha have anything else?†The applicant’s question snapped Marcie out of her woolgathering. She shouldn’t be thinking about the dreadful if pathetic Monroe Hall; she should be thinking about a job for the gentleman across the desk from her in her cubicle, uh… Fred Blanchard, most recently a private secretary for a foreign diplomat down in Washington, D.C., now returning to her desk the list of current job availabilities she- shown him. Time to get down to business. “Well, I’m surprised, Mr. Blanchard,†she said, “you haven’t pursued your job search in the greater Washington area. We have fine people in this part of Pennsylvania, but not many international diplomats.†“That’s good,†Blanchard told her. He was a cheerful, sharp-featured guy with an easygoing manner. “I’ve had enough of international intrigue for a while,†he told her. “I got family up around here, I thought I- like a little more laid-back a setting. You’ve gotta havesomerich people around here, need a private secretary, somebody to field the phone calls and the correspondence, deal with the press, take care of the archives.†“Well, yes, but someone just at the moment inneed-†He watched her, bright-eyed as a bird. “You thought of something?†She leaned closer to him. As neutrally as she possibly could, she spoke the name: “Monroe Hall.†He didn’t even blink. Still smiling, he said, “Is that the kind of guy I’m talking about?†“Oh, yes, he is,†she said, but then doubt scudded like a cloud across her features. “Have you never heard of him? Monroe Hall?†He thought, his smile turning quizzical, “Should I?†“His name was in the paper for a while.†“Oh, the paper.†Blanchard brushed the fourth estate to one side.:t the embassy,†he said, “we only watched International CNN.†“Would you-would you like me to set up an appointment?â€

“Why not?†he said. " Talk about lightning strikes twice. Hardly was Marcie back from lunch, not two hours after sending Fred Blanchard up to talk to Monroe Hallzndhowwould that work out and did she hope he- get the job or refuse it?-here came another one. His name was Warren Gillette, and the first thing she noticed about him was that he used to be the chauffeur for Jer about foCrumbie, who just happened to be one of Marcie’s most favorite movie stars. “My goodness,†she said, “You know Jer Crumbie?†“Mostly in the rearview mirror,†he said, “Nice fella, though. Not one of your uppity types.†She was very glad to hear that. “I see he gives you a wonderful recommendation.†“Yeah, I know.†Gillette chuckled. “It couldn’t of been better if I wrote it myself.†;ut why did you leave?†“I didn’t,†Gillette said, and shrugged. “He left me. Gave up his New York place and went back to the Coast. For his career, you know.†“Oh, I see.†She opened the lower right drawer of her desk and pulled a folder from it. “We have a number of driver-type openings. Not movie stars, though.†Another chuckle. “I guess I’ve had enough movie stars for a while.†?ine. Here’s a delivery van, furniture store.†He made a little grimace. “I don’t know,†he said. “Maybe I’m spoiled or something, but I like to drive for one person, you know. And a good car. Jer always surrounded himself with very good cars.†“Oh, my goodness,†she said, with sudden realization. “We have someone, very local, who’s famous forwonderfulcars, and I know he’s right now looking for a new chauffeur.†“Well, this is my lucky day,†Gillette said. “Who is he?†Marcie squinched her eyes up, half in expectation of some sort of explosion. “Monroe Hall,†she said. :nd he’s a rich man with a lot of cars, you say.†Gillette nodded. “What kinda business he in?†Marcie said, “You never heard of Monroe Hall?†“Not another showbiz guy, I hope.†“He was all over the newspapers,†Marcie told him,:nd the television.†:t Jer’s house,†Gillette said,:ll we ever looked at was the trades. Unless they’re doing a TV docudrama on this guy’s life, I doubt I’ve heard of him.â€

“I bet they will,†Marcie said. “He’s a businessman, stole from his stockholders, stole from his employees, stole from his family, stole from the government.†Gillette nodded through all this; then, “Well, nobody’s perfect,†he said. " Meanwhile, in another cubicle down the line, an applicant named Judson Swope, rather a fearsome large creature, was telling a wee little employee named Penelope, “Yeah, sure, I a wee, s know who he is. Monroe Hall. Put it over on everybody. Listen, I don’t care what he done. If he pays me, I work for him. People don’t like him, so somebody’s gotta be there to bust heads. I like to bust heads, and I like it best when I get paid to do it. Sign me up.†“Yes, sir,†whispered Penelope, while in the cubicle behind her a hangdog sort of man with his hat in his hands was saying, “I was a butler in my previous employment.†Daisy, for this was Daisy’s cubicle, looked at him in some surprise. “You were?†It seemed so improbable. “I open a mean door,†he assured her. “Here’s the form I filled out, and my references.†Daisy studied the form first. John Rumsey, with a temporary address with friends over in Shickshinny. Good work history, excellent reference from the Honorable Hildorg Chk, Vostkojekian ambassador to the United States. : guy I worked with there, at the embassy,†Rumsey said, “he come in here this morning, you got him a job, he said maybe you could get me one, too.†“What name?†?red Blanchard.†“One of the other interviewers must have handled him. Where did we place Mr. Blanchard?†“With somebody called Monroe Hall.†“Mon-His name is Blanchard?†“Yeah.†“One moment. Just-One moment.†She hurried away and it didn’t take long to find Marcie, and then it took no time at all to get John Rumsey signed up to apply for the job of butler out at the Hall estate. If John Rumsey didn’t look to Daisy a heck of a lot like her idea of a butler, so what? He- been good enough for Ambassador Chk. He- be good enough for Monroe Hall. " “Monroe?â€

A very guarded “Yes.†“This is Henry, Monroe.†Blank silence. “Henry Cooper.†:h! Reconsidered Henry? Ready to sell that agency, turn it over to fresh blood?†“I just wanted you to know, I’m in the process of sending four new employees out to you today.†?our?†Expecting gratitude, possibly even fawning gratitude, Cooper enumerated them: verybody gets along with me,†he said. " John Rumsey was somehow not what Hall had expected in a butler. The black suit was fine, thl had fiough it suggested Rumsey might have lost a pound or two here and there in recent days. The stiff-collared white shirt, the knife-thin black necktie, the gleaming black oxford shoes as big as gunboats, all filled the bill. But was it right for a butler to lookhangdog? How could he ever order Christmas carolers to clear out, run along there, that’ll be quite enough ofthat? On the other hand, when was the next time Monroe Hall would be in a position to be irritated by Christmas carolers? Many snows from now, according to the signs. The man’s defeated look to one side, his history was excellent. Clean police check, excellent former employment with an eastern European embassy in Washington. Even though only eastern, if a European embassy in Washington had found this fellow Rumsey adequate as a butler, then why shouldn’t Monroe Hall? Hall looked again at the records. Reason job ended: employer slain. “What?†Rumsey looked guilty. “I didn’t say anything.†“No, I know. I did. Employerslain?†“Oh, yeah,†Rumsey said. “That’s what happened.†;ut-why?†“He went home for the holidays.†Which wasn’t precisely an answer to the question, but Hall let it go. He said, “So when he didn’t come back, you quit?†?ired,†Rumsey said. “We were all fired, in case anybody was loyal to Chk.†“I’m sorry?†“In case we were loyal to Chk.†“I’m sorry?†“The ambassador,†Rumsey explained. “Hildorg Chk. In case we were loyal to him, they threw us all out.â€

“Wereyou loyal to him?†Rumsey shrugged. “While he was there.†“Yes, of course.†Looking down at his paperwork again, Hall said, “I see I have another former employee of Ambassador Um here.†“Yeah, Fred.†?redric Blanchard.†“I’m staying with him and a cousin of his,†Rumsey said, “until I find a thing.†Which led Hall to offer the house where Gillette and Swope were already billeted, which was accepted at once. After that, he reassured himself that Rumsey, like the others, was content with his terms of employment, then said, “So I’ll expect you at eight in the morning, show you your pantry, where the callbells are located, internal telephone, all that. Introlbellsat.duce you to my wife and what’s left of the staff.†“That’s good,†Rumsey said. “Only, shouldn’t your wife say I’m okay first? I wouldn’t wanna think I got a thing here and then your wife says, ‘Listen, I don’t want that guy.’ I mean, it can kinda happen, that kinda thing.†“I know exactly what you mean,†Hall said, pleased and surprised by the man’s sensitivity.;ut my wife and I discussed it, and our situation is so, shall we say, unusual here, unless it’s a maid for herself, for instance, or something like that, she’ll be guided completely by me.†Rumsey nodded. “So if you say I’m in, I’m in.†›xactly. So you can move into the house any time today, the guards at the gate will know to let you through, and I’ll see you in the morning.†“See you then,†Rumsey said, and came very close to smiling, Hall caught him at it. He should smile more often, Hall thought, it makes him look a trifle less pessimistic. Rumsey got to his feet and sloped across the office. Hall watched him carefully, and it seemed to him Rumsey did a very creditable handling of the door. " The last of the four, Fredric Blanchard, the private secretary, was the most difficult of the interviews because, on sober reflection, Hall finally admitted to himself he no longerneededa private secretary. There are people one needs at one stage of lifez nanny, say, a tutor, a drug dealer, a bookie, a bail bondsman-that one simply doesn’t need at some other stage of life. Has no use for, no call upon. In a word, “I’m sorry,†Hall told the bright-eyed, sharp-nosed attentive fellow across the desk,;ut I’m afraid I’ve wasted your time. I shouldn’t have had you come out here.â€

Fred Blanchard cocked his head, like a particularly attentive crow, without losing the welcoming smile he- brought in here. “Sorry to hear that,†he said. Кn I ask how I come up short?†“It isn’t you, you know,†Hall told him. “It’s me. You’re overqualified. I don’t need a private secretary anymore.†“I have trouble believing that,†Blanchard told him. “Oh, Iusedto need a private secretary,†Hall said, with a little nostalgic sigh. “Two, in fact. They were always at each other’s throats, that was part of the fun of it. But, you see, I don’t have that kind of life any more, I’m not flying off here, skiing off there, board of directors meetings, chairman of symphony board, all that’s behind me now. I barely-you know, legally Icouldleave this property, if not the state, but I just don’t feel like it any more. The fire’s gone out. I just stayhere.†“Mr. Hall,†Blanchard said, “if I may say so, sir, you need me more than ever.Nowis the time you need me, sir.†“Need you?†Hall didn’t understand.?or what?†“Rehabilitation!†Blanchard cried, and pointed a stern finger at the ceiling. “It’s time,†he declared, in ringing tones, “to get your story out there!†“My storyisout there,†Hall said, “that’s the trouble.†“Your old story is out there,†Blanchard insisted. “It’s time for a new story, and that’s why you needme. A personal. Private. Secretary.†“Yes, but-†But Blanchard was unstoppable. “Now, if I were PR, you- be wrong to say yes. The evils PR do would be hard to assess. That starts with ‘P,’ and it rhymes with ‘T,’ and that means trouble. But a private secretary doesn’t have that commercial hypocritical taint. A private secretary can get the new you out there!†“The new me?†“It’s time,†declared Blanchard, “that everybody just gotoverit!†“Yes!†cried Hall. “Just myself, I-†“You’re chastened,†Hall told him. “You’re human after all. You regret the effects of what you’ve done, but that’s the past. That’s yesterday, when all your troubles-†“Would I have to give back the money?†“Never!†Blanchard’s eyes flashed. “You’re explaining your common humanity, you’re not feeding the multitudes!†“No, no, I see.â€

“We’ll start small,†Blanchard said. Somehow, he was halfway across Hall’s desk, staring into his eyes. xactly so. And would you send Blanchard and Gillette to see me in my office, just to the left there, at ten?†There was a blankness in Rumsey’s blinking. “Sur?†;lanchard and Gillette.†;lan…†The man was completely at a loss. ?or heaven’s sake, man,†Hall said, “you and Fred Blanchard have worked together for years!†“Oh,Fred!†Rumsey cried.?redBlanchard. Oh, sorry, right about that.†Now, leaning unexpectedly close as for a confidence, he said, “Out of context, you see what I mean?†“Yes, well,†Hall said, automatically taking a backward step that bumped him into the staircase he- just left, “this is rather new for us all.†;lanchard and Gillette,†Rumsey said, morphing back to near-erectness. “He’ll be the driver. The other one. Ten o,lock. Will do, sur.†" “Well, my dear,†Alicia said, over crustless toast and coddled eggs †Alledand strawberry jam and well-creamed coffee, “what do you think of our new people?†“They’re perfect,†Hall told her. “Of course, I’ve barely seen them so far, and I must say Rumsey the butler’s an odd duck. But then, so many servants are, really.†:merica doesn’t know how to breed servants,†Alicia said. “That’s perfectly true.†“The problem,†she suggested, “is that the Inquisition had ended, or at least its really active years had ended, before the founding of the United States, so on this side of the Atlantic there was never that drilled-in terror over generations to make people eager to obey orders.†“I like your insights, Alicia,†Hall said, patting his lips with damask,;ut now I must go have a word with two more of our new acquisitions.†" Monroe Hall’s office, in the front right corner of the main floor, with large windows that offered ego-supportive views down toward his guardhouse and leftward toward his village and outbuildings, had been designed and furnished by one of the finest teams of nostalgic recreators in America. Did you want a keeping room? Did you want a bread oven? Did you want gaslight to supplement your electric bulbs? Did you want, along a waist-high dado cap around the room, to tastefully display your collection of iron nineteenth-century mechanical banks? Call Pioton Fone, and watch your dreams come true. Monroe Hall had, and he couldn’t

enter his office, as a result, without smiling. Didn’t it look just like Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne€™s office, just before Yorktown? Yes, it did. Mm, it did. Today, entering the office, Hall saw Blanchard and Gillette already present, which made sense, because Hall was deliberately ten minutes late. Both were studying the iron banks on the little rail around the room, Blanchard leaning close over the one of a fisherman on a boat. Place a coin on the flat plate at the end of the fishing line and the weight causes the machinery inside to move the fisherman’s arm, and the fishing line, until the coin falls into the open mouth of the creel at the stern of the boat, and thus into the bank. Looking around when Hall made his entrance, Blanchard said, “Morning, sir.†“Morning.†“Oh, yeah, morning. Sir,†Gillette the driver said. “Morning,†Hall repeated. He was so pleased to have these people. Blanchard dabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the fisherman. “How do I get my quarter back?†“Ha ha.†Got another one. With a big broad grin, Hall said, “You don’t, Fred. Sorry about that. Ho ho. Now come on, you two, let’s work out our day.â€

They obediently moved over toward the genuine nineteenthcentury partners desk, built at a time when lawyers trusted one another. As Hall took a seat there, the other two remaining standing, Blanchard frowned e, the frback at that fisherman as though wanting to remember exactly where to find him, some other time, but then he joined Hall and Gillette and didn’t seem troubled at all. ["_Toc156052603"] 37 FLIP MORRISCONE WAS NOWHEREto be found, all day Wednesday. He didn’t make his three o,lock appointment with Monroe Hall or, so far as they could tell, any other of his appointments. To be certain the man had neither overslept nor died in his sleep, the union team of the conspiracy trooped through the Morriscone house one last time, then came back out to report to capital, “Not there.†Now that they- finally made their decision, and had finally accepted the need and utility of cooperation between the two groups, it was frustrating that their very first decision couldn’t be acted upon. Before parting for the day, all five gathered in their usual places in Buddy’s Taurus, where Buddy said, “We’restillnot getting anywhere.†“One day,†Mark pointed out. “Maybe he had food poisoning, went to the hospital. Maybe his uncle came to town, he took the day off, they went to the races.†Buddy, looking confused, said, “Races. Oh, the track, you mean.†Mac said, “There’s no point giving up after just one day.†›xactly,†Mark said. Ace said, “How much longer you wanna go spinning your wheels?†“We’ll give it the rest of this week,†Mac said. “Two working days, and Saturday. If we don’t find him before, and if he isn’t home Saturday, we’ll try to think of something else.†Os said, “I know some people in the Army Reserves.†They looked at him. Even Mark seemed a little nervous, when he said, “Os? And?†“If it goes into next week,†Os said, “I borrow a tank.†"

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. They did find him, late Thursday morning. Following what they knew of his schedule, they drove along, packed together into the Taurus-Mark and Os were truly sacrificing for this jobznd there he was at last, Flip Morriscone, coming out of the well-appointed home of one of his clients. His green Subaru was parked at the curb of the public street, as they pulled to a stop farther along. Here he came, long canvas bag bouncing on his shoulder, the satisfied look of the successful torturer in his eye. Mark and Mac, as representatives of the combined team, approached him as he reached for the rear door of the Subaru to toss the bag in, Mark saying, “Mr. Morriscone. If we could have a moment?†It had been decided that an Ivy League accent would be more reassuring than a union accent for the initial approach, and that Mark was just naturally less scary than Os. In the Sancho Panza role, Mturally lac was deemed by all to be the most acceptable. Morriscone continued his movement of tossing the bag into the back of the wagon, then slammed the door and turned to them, seeming not at all worried to be accosted by strangers. “Yes?†“There’s a certain someone that you and we know,†Mark began, smooth and calm, “that we have a dislike for.†Morriscone looked baffled. “There’s somebody I know that you don’t like?†›xactly. Now, we want to do something to this fellow-†“Hey,†Morriscone said, taking a step backward. “Keep me out of this.†“Not to kill him or anything like that,†Mark assured him,;ut to, let us say, cost him something.†“Good God!†Morriscone was getting more and more agitated. “What are you, gangsters?†“Not at all,†Mark said, “we are perfectly respectable people, as I’m sure you can see for yourself. All we ask is a little assistance from you, for which you will be well reimbursed as soon as-†;ribery!†Morriscone was actually shouting by now. “Get away from me!†he shouted. “I’ve got trouble enough, I can’t be}o you want me to call thepolice?â€

Mac could see that Mark’s oil was not smoothing the waters the way they- hoped. They- agreed beforehand not to mention the target’s name until they had Morriscone convinced to help them, just in case he- feel the need to go warn Monroe Hall, but maybe all in all that strategy hadn’t been such a good one. Taking a deep breath, speaking forcefully into Morriscone’s agitated reddening face, Mac announced, “Monroe Hall!†“Mon-†Morriscone’s jaw dropped. He stared at them both like long-lost brothers. “Youwant to get even with that son of a bitch,too?†A broad grin creased his features. “Why didn’t yousayso?†["_Toc156052604"] 38 WHAT STAN MURCH HADbeen looking forward to driving was, maybe, a 1958 Studebaker Golden Hawk two-door roadster, or another two-door, the 1932 Packard model 900, or a 1955 Mercedes Gullwing Custom, in which the doors swing out and upward, or a four-door 1937 twelve-cylinder Pierce-Arrow limousine, all of which he happened to know were in Monroe Hall’s antique car collection, because he- researched this job with loving care. Hegotten lists of Hall’s holdings from newspaper reports and then discussed them with Chester who, after all, was also a driver, though privately Stan thought probably not of the very highest rank. What he hadn’t expected was to be making supermarket runs at the wheel of a black Suzuki Vitara, a kind of pocket SUV that drove like a jeep; the original jeep, that is, from World War Two, and probably under fire. Nor was that the worst of it, because hereallyhadn€™t expected to be steering a no-pedigree wire-cage shopping cart up and down supermarket aisles in the wake of a harridan namnd down sed Mrs. Parsons. Mrs. Parsons was some piece of work. She was to the manner born, and she wanted you to know it. When, at the post-breakfast meeting in Monroe Hall’s office at the main house, Hall had said, “Here’s your cap, Gillette, and I hope you have a tie and a dark jacket to wear on duty. Good. Get them, and then you’ll drive the cook to the supermarket,†Stan had thought he understood all the words in that last sentence, including ver ride horseback, Fred?â€

“I bet on them a couple times,†Blanchard said, “so now I don’t trust them.†["_Toc156052607"] 41 IT WAS ALL FALLING APART, because nobody wanted to play Jay Gilly. Mac could see the way things were trending, and he just didn’t like it at all. They were all gathered in Flip Morriscone’s office, all except Flip, who- had to go off to tend to another client. “Just pull the door shut when you go,†he- told his new best friends. They- assured him they would, and he- grinned around at them all, said, “Revengeissweet,†and left. But revenge wasn’t being sweet at the moment. Right now, it was turning more sour by the second, and all because nobody was willing to be Jay Gilly. We should have worked this out before Flip made the call, Mac told himself. But in that case, he pointed out to himself, he still wouldn’t have made it, would he? It was Buddy’s contention that Mark Sterling was the ideal Jay Gilly, vociferously backed up by Ace. Their argument was class: “It has to be one of you guys,†Buddy said. “We don’t look like horse people, us three, we look like what we are, which is working stiffs.†“That’s right,†Ace agreed. “We couldn’t hoity-toity if you held a gun to our head.†“Well, I’m not quite sure what ‘hoity-toity’ might be,†Mark snipped, giving a perfect example of the thing itself,;ut neither Os nor I could portray this Gilly fellow for a very good reason. Monroe Hallknowsus.†›xactly,†Os said. “We were in business together, worse luck.†That stopped everybody for a second, but then Ace said, “Heknowsyou. You’re buddies all the time now? Or were you in an office here and there with a bunch of other guys, sittin around a table, robbin the widows and orphans together, ten guys in a room for an hour, he’s gonnarememberyou?†“Yes,†Mark said. Os said, “He’ll certainly rememberme. Last time I saw him, I threw a golf trophy at him. If he hadn’t ducked, I- have shot that upraised golf club straight into his left eye.†“Well, that’s you,†Ace said. “What about your pal here? What’s to makehimstand out in Hall’s memory?†“I’m the one,†Mark said, “who wrestled Os to the ground, then wasted two or three minutes apologizing to the bastard.†“Never apologize,†Os said.

Ace said, “You could go in disguise.†Mark looked revolted. =isguise? Some Santa Claus beards? Those false spectacles with the eyebrows and the nose?†“Well, a better disguise than that,†Ace said. “Like they do in the movies.†“We can contribute the horse trailer,†Mark reminded them,:nd one horse, but that’s the extent of our contribution.†It was true. It turned out that Mark had some cousin over in New Jersey who was connected with horse people, and had arranged for the loan of a horse trailer with horse. Tomorrow morning, Mark and Os would drive to New Jersey to get the thing. But in the afternoon, who would drive it to Monroe Hall’s place? Mac said, “Mark, I see the problem, we all do really see the problem. Monroe Hall would recognize you. But Buddy’s right, we three don’t look like horse people.†“Well, now, there you’re wrong,†Mark told him. “Yes, it’s true, there are some upper-crust horse people. The Windsors come to mind. But mostly, you know, they’re arrivistes. And in any case, a riding instructor isn’t part of the horsey set, any more than a trainer or a groom. These are people standing in horseshit every day of their lives, the ones who actually work with the beasts. The owners are well away somewhere, only to appear when it’s time to grace the winner’s circle. Mac, youknowwhat you have to do.â€

This was the bad place where it had all been trending, and now here it was. Knowing there was no way out, no one else to whom he could hand off this intimidating task, he sighed, long and deep, and said, “Mark, tell me you know enough about those people so you can teach me how to pass.†=one,†Mark said. Os, deadpan, said, “Mac, you will look smashing in jodhpurs.†["_Toc156052608"] 42 :RE THEY STILL BEHIND US?â€Mark asked. No matter how he crunched down, he couldn’t get a useful image from the mirror outside his passenger door. “Of course they’re still behind us,†Os said. He was not in the best of tempers. “If they weren’t still behind us, would I still be driving?†Mark resisted the desire to say, “God knows.†Instead, deciding it was time to placate his partner, he said, “I know you- rather we didn’t have to do this.†:nd how right you are.†;ut there’s just no alternative. I’ve thought and thought-†“I’vethought and thought,†Os assured him,:nd if there were any alternative at all, some dotty absent relation of your own, for inse at all,tance, we would be hotfooting inthatdirection this instant.†Of course. Mark knew, from long experience of Os, it was time now to let it go, permit Os to fume in silence and gradually come to accommodate the situation. It was only when he was argued with, or even merely talked with, that Os would move on from disgruntled to ominous. The problem was what to do with Monroe Hall once they got their hands on him. They would certainly have to hold him for a few days at least, while they pressured him to do their bidding and reassured themselves the money transfers had actually been made. Theplaceto hold him would have to be isolated, yet Internet-linked, and anonymous enough that Hall wouldn’t be able to find or identify it afterward. The three union members in the Taurus behind them were totally useless when it came to such a place, and Mark had to admit he was useless as well. The only answer, which Os was reluctantly forced to admit, was his aunt Elfreda’s lodge up in the mountains. Thither they were going now; to be certain it could accommodate them.

This lodge had been in Os’s family since the family’s income was based on coal and railroads, built by some ancestor of his as a manly midwinter retreat for hunting and poker, no wives allowed. As time moved on, and customs changed, the lodge became more of a family location, with skiing for the most part to replace the hunting. But the lodge was still only used in the depths of the winter, the family having other places to go and other things to do the rest of the year. Aunt Elfreda, a much-married lady of innumerable offspring, had inherited the lodge years ago and used it now mostly for vast holiday get-togethers, followed by smaller more ad hoc ski weekends. The lodge had become Internet-connected some years ago, because many of Elfreda’s children and their spouses were in commerce and wouldn’t have been able to participate in the jollity if their umbilical to the office were disconnected. Off-season, such as now, the lodge was shut up tight, protected by alarm systems with which Os was of course familiar. The next legitimate human presence in or around the lodge would be in early December, when the caretaker family from the town twenty miles away would come to clean and tidy and stock the place with provisions for the new season. The roads northeastward toward the lodge were increasingly narrow, winding, and hilly, as they moved up into the Allegheny mountains. Towns were few and far between, and Mark was surprised, when they approached one of them, to be greeted by a sign that readGRISSLE. As they passed among the hamlet’s six houses, one church, and combination post office/gas station/convenience store, he said, “Grissle? The town is called Grissle?†“It’s where the caretakers live,†Os said. “We’ll be there very soon now.†Well, notverysoon. It was another twenty miles, higher into the heavily forested mountains, with the occasional dirt road wandering off to left or right, but at last Os took one of those side roads, leftward, and now itreallygot steep. “They’re having a little trouble back there,†Os said, smiling at the rearview mirror.;ut they’ll be along.†Up, up, and all at once the lodge appeared. At first there were a pair of elaborate stone gateposts to the sides of twere aidehe road, but without a gate. Beyond them, the forest had been thinned somewhat but not entirely cleared, and the road curved up to a stop in front of what looked like the world’s biggest log cabin, girdled all around with broad porches and featuring massive stone chimneys at both ends. All the windows were covered with sheets of plywood. Separate outbuildings, also of logs, seemed to be garages and storage sheds. Os stopped the Porsche just before the gateposts.?irst line of defense,†he announced, shifted into park, and got out of the car. Twisting around, Mark saw the Taurus slowly make its way up the road. Turning instead to watch Os, he saw him open what had appeared to be just another stone in the lefthand gate-

post, but which now turned out to be a fake, with a hinge. Inside was an alarm keypad, on which Os rapidly punched out a number, then closed the fake stone and came back to the car. Pausing beside it, he called down to the Taurus occupants, “Courage, mes amis!†then got chuckling behind the wheel and drove on up to the house. Here, it turned out the keypad was behind a concealed panel on a support post of the porch roof, just at the top of the four-step stoop. Os played another brief etude on it, then turned to the front door as the Taurus stopped below, just behind the Porsche. The three union men got out and were clearly suitably impressed, staring around in awe.:nd this,†Buddy said, “is the house theydon’tuse.†As they came up the stoop, it was Ace, naturally, who said, “How come there’s no windows? Afraid of snipers?†“They’re covered in the off-season,†Mark explained. Os, who- taken a key from a niche in the log wall and was using it to open the door, said, “Rodents will eat through the wood between the windowpanes, when the house isn’t occupied. They like the grout.†:nd the plywood makes it perfect for us,†Mark said. Os opened the door and they all trooped into a very dark room. “One mo,†Os said, marched into the darkness, and a minute later he switched on a table lamp beside a sofa. A very large room sprang into existence, more like the lobby of a fake-rustic hotel than somebody€™s living room. Buddy said, “They leave the electricity on? All year round?†“Of course,†Os said, and it was left to Mark to explain,?or the alarms, and you have to have some heat in the place.†:nd,†Os added, “one must maintain the temperature and humidity in the wine cellar.†“Oh, yeah,†Buddy said. “I didn’t thinka that.†Mac said, “Mark, what did you mean, the plywood makes it perfect for us?†“Hall won’t be able to see out,†Mark told him. “He won’t be able to identify a thing.†Os said,: couple of laptops are kept here, with the phone number installed for local Internet access. When te phons. he family’s here, anyone who needs to log on can take a laptop to his bedroom, plug it into the phone line there, and do whatever he wants. So that means we can put Hall in any of the bedrooms. They all have attached baths, and they all have doors that lock.†Ace said, “You got a small one? With a lumpy bed?â€

“I like your thinking,†Os told him. xcuse me, Mr…?†;lanchard, Fred Blanchard.†“Mr. Blanchard, are-†?red, please.†“Areyou,†she insisted, “saying that Mr. Hall wouldbuyanddonatetousa bus?†“He’s been impressed by the work you’re doing over there.†“Mr.-†?red, please. And you’re?†:lice Turner.†:lice, why don’t we work out a date here, agreeable to both of us, so Mr. Hall can be sure to have the bus ready in time to bring the kiddies to the picnic?†“Well…†“Sunday after next, would that be good?†No, as it turned out, that would be a little too soon, as Kelp had expected. Alice had board members to consult, and so on, and so on, but by the end of the conversation all ice was gone, and it was pretty clear that Monroe Hall was in one picnic with sixty kiddies and out one bus. Kelp was just hanging up, pleased with himself|haritable work is always satisfying, particularly with somebody else’s money-when Mrs. Hall walked in, for the second time in ten minutes, but this time looking worried.?red,†she said, “have you seen Mr. Hall?†“He’s out riding a horse,†Kelp told her. “They left about fifteen minutes ago.†“Well, no, he’s not,†she said. Kelp said, “The instructor drove in with his own horse, fifteen minutes ago.†:nd left, just a few minutes later,†Mrs. Hall said. “When I couldn’t find Monroe, and I didn’t see any horse transporter out front, I called the gate, and they said the horse transporter left not five minutes after it arrived. They thought it was merely somebody bringing a horse on approval, for Monroe to possibly buy.†“No, it was to learn to ride.†“I know that,†Mrs. Hall agreed.;ut the gate didn’t know that. Nobody thought it necessary to tell the gatewhya horse transporter was coming into the compound, so when it went right back out, they assumed it was merely a horse that Monroe had decided not to buy.†Frowning, Kelp got up and went over to look out the front window. No horse transporter in front of the house. Nothing in front of the house, all the way down to the guardshack. “Maybe,†he said, and turned around to look at Mrs. Hall’s worried face, “he de-

cided he wasn’t ready to ride a horse after all, and sent the guy away. Or just didn’t like the guy.†“Then where did he go? Fred, where did my husband go?†Kelp looked out the window. “Well, he wouldn’t leave the compound.†“Not willingly.†Kelp studied that worried face again, and this time he suspected his own face showed a little worry as well. “Mrs. Hall,†he said, “nothing’shappened, everything’sokay.†“Then where is Monroe?†she said. “I’ve called all the other places around the compound where he might be, and no one’s seen him. Not since the horse transporter came in and went right back out again.†;ut-†Kelp didn’t like what Mrs. Hall was thinking, because he knew it was the same as what he was thinking, and he wasn’t ready for what they both were thinking. He was toobusyfor what they both were thinking. Mrs. Hall said, “There are people who would like to get their hands on Monroe.†This was true. Their hands and probably also their feet. Feeling discombobulated, not himself, not even Fred Blanchard, Kelp said, leven,†Ace said. “Henrietta will go along with bowling or whatever, but the curfew’s eleven.†“Me, too,†Buddy said. Os said, “Then we merely move the schedule forward, talk to Hall at nine, then come back tomorrow. No one needs to stay here overnight, though actually I will. Mark and I will return horse and trailer, then I’ll come back here. In fact, I do have a right to be here, and I can keep watch.†Buddy said, “The idea was, Mark was gonna write out the demands for me to read, because Hall recognized his voice, right?†›xactly,†Os said, and Mark shuddered. Mac said, “What? Hall knows it’s Mark?†“No,†Os said. “He knows he knows the voice, that’s all. That’s why he won’t hear Mark any more, and probably shouldn’t hear me, either.â€

Buddy said, “My idea is, why don’t we just hand him the piece of paper, and he doesn’t hear anybody’s voice? That- be scarier, wouldn’t it?†Mac grinned. “Silent masked men,†he said, “with a note.†They all liked that. “I’ll get some more beer,†Ace said, getting to his feet. “Then make my call.†["_Toc156052617"] 51 THEY SAT AROUND ANOTHERterrific old-country dinner from the kitchens of Tiny, but nobody felt much like eating.›verything’s completely outa whack,†Tiny commented, frowning at his food. “It looks to me,†Stan said, “like we’re gonna find out if these IDs we got from whatsisname are gonna stand up.†Kelp said, “I’ve been trying not to think about that.†“If only we could get outa here,†Stan said. Well, forget that. Not only did the law have the entire compound shut down tight, but the media was out there like seven-year locusts, just waiting to photograph and question anything that moved. Up till now, the only upside was that three reporters so far had been hospitalized after getting a little too close to the electric fence; apparently, it did pack a mean wallop. :nd tonight,†Tiny grumbled, “we were gonna be outa here. I’m gonna be alone on the gate, the coast is clear, we’re home free. We drive the cars out, we come back and drive the rest of them out, stash them in the place, go home. Josie’s expecting me in the morning.†“Well, now she isn’t,†Kelp said. “This kidnapping thing is all over the news.†“I’m getting very irritated,†Tiny said. Stan said, “You know, I’m beginning to realize. That electric fence is just as good at keeping people in as it is keeping people out.†“We all noticed that,†Tiny told him. Kelp said, “I wonder how John’s doing.†Tiny snorted. =ortmunder? Don’t worry about Dortmunder, worry about us. He’s outa here.†["_Toc156052618"] 52 IGOTTA GET OUTA HERE, Dortmunder thought. But how? This was a kind of a nice bedroom-guestroom, he figured, with its own small attached bath{ut it wasn’t rich with forms of egress, and yet, Dortmunder didn’t want to be in it any more.

He really needed to get out of here. The car heist was supposed to go down tonight; his life as a butler was supposed to be finished by now. But here he was in thisroom. I should be able to beat this thing, he told himself. What Idois get in and out of places. So this is a place, and I’ve got to get out of it. What do we have in here? What are the possibilities? Like most bedrooms, this one had a door that opened inward from the hall, so the hinges were on this side, and that should mean he could pop the pins out of the hinges and yank the door open that way. Worry about what was on the other side of the door whenhewas on the other side of the door. eftfont color="rgb(0, 0, 0)">The only trouble was, these hinges had been painted so many times over so many years they were absolutely stuck solid. Maybe if he had pliers, wrenches, hammers, probably a hacksaw, he could make some headway with these hinges, but not with bare fingers. Not after bending one fingernail a little too far back. So what else do we have here? Two windows, both good-sized, and one smaller window in the bathroom, and all three of them sealed up with plywood attached on the outside. Push on that plywood, nothing happens. Punch it with the heel of your hand, then you get to walk around the next five minutes saying, “Ow, ow, ow,†with your right hand stuck in your left armpit. What else? Anything else? The door is locked, with a kind of ordinary old-fashioned lock, the kind where you can bend down or kneel down and look through the keyhole and see some length of wall and another closed door across the way. Maybe Hall was in there. Anyway, there’s no getting at this lock in this door, just no way. And yet, somebody was inserting a key, he could hear it, inserting the key, and turning it. Damn! If he- known somebody was coming, he could have positioned himself behind the door with a chair poised over his head. Now, it was all happening too quick: key in lock, knob turn, door open. Oh. Five of them, all in those different kinds of masks. The one with the bandanna around his nose and mouth like a bank robber in the old West must have been the driver on the trip here. Anyway, a chair was not going to deal with all five of these people, no matter how much advance warning he got. “Listen,†he said, as they tromped in, “I gotta get outa here.†One of them handed him a piece of paper. What? What’s this? A handwritten note? Don’t these people speak English? Well, of course they do, he- heard them in the trailer. Two others were putting things on the low dresser. A sandwich, on a paper plate. Soup in a waxed-paper cup. Ice cream in another waxed-paper cup, with a plastic spoon. They nodded at him, pointed at the food, and turned away.

“Hey,†he said. “Hey, wait a minute.I’mnot the one you want, what’s the edge in holding on tomelike this?†They weren’t here to talk. They left, closed the door, turned the key in the lock, took the key away with them. Damnthose people! How could they louse things up soWhat time was it, anyway? He couldn’t see out, he didn’t have a watch, he had no way to tell if it was day or night or what it was. But the sandwich and the soup and the ice cream suggestedznd his stomach was going along with the idea-that it was dinnertime. How long did they figure to keep him in here? Maybe the note would give him a clue. Opening it, he read: Dear Mr. Butler,

We’re sorry we had to bring you along. It was not in 0)">Wes nthe original plan. We need your employer’s agreement to abusiness situation. The discussions may take some little time, and unfortunately we will not be able to release you until their conclusion. In the meantime, we will provide you with food and shelter. We can bring you books or magazines, if you like, or possibly a television set, though the reception in these mountains isn’t very good, and of course we can’t let you have access to the satellite. If you have any requests for items we could bring you, write them on the back of this note and slip it under the door. We feel we should not engage in conversation with you. Again, please accept our apologies for including you in this operation. We all hope it will be over soon. In the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy your unexpected vacation. Your Friends Meatheads. Eating the sandwich-ham and swiss on sourdough, with honey mustard and mayo, not bad}ortmunder brooded at the room, this solid cube he was shut inside. How? ["_Toc156052619"] 53 WHEN HE HEARD THEclinkof his pen as it hit the floor, Monroe Hall immediately dropped the metal rod onto the windowsill against the plywood, slid the window shut, and was halfway across the room, glaring, when the door opened and the five buffoons in their varied masks marched in. “What now?†he demanded, hoping one of them would talk. He needed to hear that voice again, the one he knew damn well he- heard somewhere in the past. Some unpleasant association, but that didn’t help much; most of his conversations the last few years had involved unpleasant associations.

But they didn’t speak, none of them. The one wearing a Frankenstein head carried a laptop, and the one in the green ski mask with the elks carried a folded sheet of paper, which he extended toward Hall. Hall backed away, not taking the paper. “You people are in a great deal of trouble,†he said. “You can make it easier for yourselves if you release me now. The longer this goes on-†Ski Mask moved forward, waving the piece of paper in his face, insisting he take it. Hall folded his arms. “If you want to talk to me,†he said, “talk to me.†In the background, Frankenstein had started a whispered conversation with Bandit’s Bandanna, who nodded. So did Paper Bag and the Lone Ranger. Hall, trying to keep an eye on everybody at once while ignoring the sheet of paper, watched Frankenstein and Bandit come this way, passing to either side of Ski Mask. Abruptly, they grabbed Hall’s arms, ran him backward, and forced him to sit down hard on the bed. “What are you-What are youdoing?†Frankenstein and Bandit stood to each side of him, to hold him in place. Ski Mask stepped forward, opened the piece of paper, and held it in front of Hall’s face. Hall knew when to quit.:ll right,†he said.:llright, I’ll read it. You can let me go, I’ll read it by myself.†So they let him go. Ski Mask handed him the paper, and he read: You will access your offshore accounts. You will transfer cash to other accounts we will describe to you. When the transactions are complete, we will release you. “Not a chance.†He glared at them, and they stood in a semicircle, observing him, waiting to see what he would do. He said, “I will not, now or ever, while you people hold on to me, access anything except nine-one-one. You people must have a very low opinion of me, I must say.†They looked at one another. A couple of them shrugged, and then they all turned away and moved toward the door. Hall popped to his feet. “Make your own money!†he shouted at their backs. =on’t come sniveling tome!†Out the door they went, carrying the laptop, shut the door, and the key turned in the lock. Immediately Hall went looking for his pen, which he found against the baseboard, where the door had pushed it when they came in. It was his warning system. Once again, the same as last time, he inserted the end of the pen into the keyhole, balancing it there just far enough inside not to fall back out again, and also far enough inside to be nudged by a key as it was inserted from the other side. The idea had served him well already, and he was sure it would serve him well again.

Alarm system in place, he turned back to the window he- been working at, and all at once the lights went out. Oh, yes? In the dark, he made his way around the bed and found the bathroom doorway, and tried the light switch there, and that was also out. It was really pitch black in here, and of course it would go on being pitch black, night and day. He could see their idea. They had no intention of feeding him, of course, and they would leave him alone here in the dark, making their demands until hunger and sense deprivation should force him to go along. Well, it wasn’t going to happen. Hall had triumphed over tougher adversaries than these amateurs. He didn’t need light, not for what he had to do. In the dark, he moved along the wall until he found the window he wanted. He opened it, reached in, and found the rod where he- dropped it. This was a strong piece of metal about eight inches long, one inch wide, and a quarter inch thick. It had been part of the flushing system in his toilet. He- have to flush by hand now, but that wouldn’t be a problem. Not for as long as he intended to be in this place.

He- be happier with a larger tougher prybar, but this one would do. Slowly, patiently, relentlesly, he prodded the space between the window frame and the plywood sheeting. Infinitesimally, he could feel it give way. He had no idea how much longer he worked on it, but then all at once he became aware of a difference in the air, a hint of smell, a sense of movement. Outside air. It was a start. ["_Toc156052620"]] 54 IT WAS PANIC THATsaved Flip’s bacon, panic and nothing more. The trouble was, it had never occurred to him that once “Jay Gilly†kidnapped Monroe Hall, the person who hadrecommendedJay Gilly to Monroe Hall would attract the attention of the police. After all,hewouldn’t be anywhere around the Hall compound when the deed was done, but would have a solid alibi, being miles away with a client. Thus, it had come as a real shock when the police came beating on his office door at seven that evening. A shock that should have ruined him but that ultimately saved his bacon. He was in his office at that hour to videotape his step-board routine for the exercise DVD he planned eventually to release. All at once, a pounding at the door to the front office threw him off his stride, and initially just made him angry. Switching off the camera, fuming, ready to givesomebodya good tongue-lashing, he stomped through from the gym to the office, yanked open the door, glared at the two men in suits and ties standing there, and barked, “Nowwhat?†They both held up small leather folders with shiny things inside. “Police,†one of them said.:lphonse Morriscone?†He almost fainted. He nearly fell down in an absolute swoon. He never sweat while doing his routines, but now great beads of perspiration popped out all over him like a tapioca pudding, and he said, “Puh-puh-puh-†“We- like a moment of your time,†the same man said, but he said it in a very disagreeable threatening manner, as though what hereallywere saying was, “You’re under arrest and you’ll never be a free man again.†“Well, I-I don’t see-I mean, why would-†“If we could step inside, Mr. Morriscone.â€

“I, I, I-†Somehow, they were inside. Somehow, they were all seated in his office, the talking policeman behind the desk, Flip in the client’s chair facing him, the other policeman in the folding chair from the closet. The talking policeman said, “Tell me about Jay Gilly, Mr. Morriscone.†“Oh, my God!†They both looked alert. “Yes, Mr. Morriscone?†“I-I-who?†“You heard us, Mr. Morriscone.†Deny everything. No, it’s too late, they already know. Deny everything anyway. “I don’t, I don’t know.†“You don’t know what, Mr. Morriscone?†“Jay Gilly.†Sweat ran into Flip’s eyes, but he was afraid to blink. “Is that so?†The talking policeman smirked.:nd ye, 0)">“t somehow,†he said, “you introduced Jay Gilly to a client of yours, didn’t you? Didn’t you?†“Oh, my God.†Too late to deny everything. “Oh, Mr. Hall.†“You remember now, do you? You don’t know Jay Gilly, and yet somehow you introduced him to Monroe Hall, didn’t you? Didn’t you, Mr. Morriscone?†“I-Iorget.†“Youforget?†“Where I met him,†Flip blurted, as though that’s the question he- been asked, because in the shaken kaleidoscope that his brain had become, he knew that was the question hewouldbe asked, and that he didn’t have an answer for it. In his mind, he skittered back and forth like a rabbit trying to elude an oncoming truck, trying to figure out how it was that he knew Jay Gilly, and failing to find an answer he could present. Not through a client-the client would deny it. Not through anybody. So, in his panic and desperation, he answered the question that would destroy him before they got around to asking it. “You forget where youmethim?†“He was just-I mean, I don’t know, we justtalked, and when it was on the news, Mr. Hall, I thought, Oh, thepoliceare gonna get me!†Both policemen looked very interested at that. “Getyou, Mr. Morriscone?†Кuse I forget where I met him.†Flip waved arms around, to indicate just how large the planet Earth actually was, with so many places in it where a person might meet a person. “I mean, we just talked, he just talked to me, he told me he trained people to ride horses, and I said,Oh, I know somebody who needs somebody to teach him how to ride a horse, and he said he could do it but he- bring his own horse, and I said I’ll call Mr. Hall, and he said

fine, and I called Mr. Hall, and he said fine, I mean Mr. Hall said fine, and I told this Mr. Gilly, and he said fine, and I thought no more about it, and then it was on the news, and I thought, Oh, they’ll want to know why I talked to Mr. Hall about that man, and where did I meet him, and everything about him, and I don’tknowanything, and they’re going to find out I’m mad at Mr. Hall, and they’ll think I did it on purpose, and they’ll lock me up-†“Madat Mr. Hall?†“Oh! No-no-no, I’m not mad at Mr. Hall, did I say I was mad at Mr. Hall? Well, Iusedto be mad at Mr. Hall, just a little bit mad at Mr. Hall, but I got over all that, I mean I’m not mad at himnow, that was just-†“Whywere you mad at Mr. Hall?†Oh, why did I tell them that? Flip demanded of himself. Now I have to tell them I’m a tax cheat, and they’ll be convinced I’m a hardened criminal, and“Mr. Morriscone?†My mouth has been open a long time, Flip pointed out to himself, and shut it, then opened it to say, “He got me into a little trouble with the IRS. I didn’t know he was going to report what he paid me, soIdiI didnme,dn’t report what he paid me, and that’s the only time in my life I ever did anything like that, and I’ll never do it again, and in fact, after I stopped being mad at Mr. Hall, and never was reallymadat him, but then after that I was actuallygratefulto Mr. Hall, because I learned my lesson, believe you me.†He didn’t want to stop talking, it seemed to hold the inevitable at bay if he kept talking, but all at once he ran out of things to say, and so he just sat there. His mouth was open again. He thought, should I tell them about the time I cheated on the test in high school? No, they don’t want to know about that, they want to know all about Jay Gilly, and Ican€™ttell them about that, somehow I have tonottell them about Jay Gilly, not the truth, oh, no, not the truth. His mouth closed. Meanwhile, the talking policeman nodded thoughtfully a while, then turned to the other one and said, “You see what this is, Bob.†“I think I do,†the other one said, Flip hearing his voice for the first time. “They talked to people who knew Hall,†the talking policeman said, “looking for that weak link.†“That’s the story, all right.†Weak link? Do they meanme? “Probably met in a bar somewhere,†the talking policeman said, “something like that.†Idon’t go to bars! Fortunately, Flip didn’t actually say that, or anything else.

“So this is another blind alley,†the talking policeman said, “like that foreign embassy.†Foreign embassy? “Sure looks like it.†The talking policeman stood, and then the other policeman stood. The talking policeman said to Flip, “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Morriscone. Here’s my card.†They’re not going to arrest me! Fortunately again, Flip also left that sentence unspoken. Instead, he got to his quaking feet, took the card without looking at it, and waited for whatever would happen next. “If you remember anything else, give us a call.†“Oh, yes.†:nd when we get this Jay Gilly, and you can count on it, we will get him-†“Oh, yes.†“-we’ll ask you to come in to identify him for us.â€

“Oh, yes.†“We’ll let ourselves out.†They did, Flip staring at them in wonder the whole time. It was true! They were letting him go! They weren’t suspicious! He was a weak link! He locked the door after them, hurried back through the gym to the changing room, and took a long, long shower. Partway through, he took off his clothes. ["_Toc156052621"] 55 THE FACT IS,almost everybody who uses a power drill releases the trigger just a second too late. You or I, if we drive a long thin galvanized screw through three-quarter inch of plywood into a hardwood window frame, will keep going that tiny bit too long after the job is done, to leave the plywood around the screwhead dimpled, dented, with some few of the fibers of the plywood already torn. This is what had happened at the window where Monroe Hall, with all the obsessive patience and single-mindedness brought on by total darkness, struggled to lever a corner of plywood away from the window frame. The first part was the hardest, as that first tiny damage to the plywood caused by the power drill was worried and pressed, twisted and stressed. More fibers snapped. Air from the outside world seeped into Hall’s prison room, and then more air. None of the screws pulled out of the window frame. They were too deeply embedded in solid wood for that. Instead, slowly, relentlessly, they were pulledthroughthe plywood, leaving not quite an inch of sharp-edged screw jutting from the frame, plus a small Etna of splinters that exploded inward from the plywood. The first to come loose was at the lower-left corner of the window, and then the one a foot above that, and then the one a foot to the right along the windowsill, and then back to the next-higher screw on the side. When the fifth one popped, along the windowsill, he could force one end of his bar into the corner and push the other end up along the complaining face of the plywood until the bar was perpendicular to the building and the plywood was arched backward like a dog-eared page in a book. Was this enough? Every time he reached over the sill, it seemed, his hands hit either the cutting edges of the exposed screws or the nasty points of the shredded plywood fibers. Also, the tapered opening was still mostly too narrow to permit him to slide through. So, no; he had to do more. His fingers were bleeding from the work, and the backs of his hands were bleeding from the plywood shreds, but fortunately in the darkness he couldn’t see any of that, though he could certainly feel it. After a very brief pause to breathe in the fresh air, he pulled his lever back in and went on to finish the job of freeing the plywood all across the bottom sill. And when he wedged the lever in to make the dog-ear this time, there

was much more room to maneuver. He remembered there- been an armchair in the room. Stumbling around, cautious but hitting into anonymous things anyway, he found the chair at last and dragged it over to the window. Standing on it, he confronted an opening he really still couldn’t see, though there was by now the faintest hint of light from the outside world, and he decided the way to go out was feet first. It was very awkward, holding on to the window frame, the window, the chairback, the sill, while he maneuvered himself around, but finally there he was, seated on the sill, legs outside the house, nose aga he was, inst the window glass. He had no idea what was outside or how far away the ground might be, but did that matter? No, it did not. Where were those jutting screws? He felt under his thighs, and there they were, too close together to avoid completely. He- just have to slide out above them somehow. Grasping the bottom of the open window with both hands, he leaned far backward into the darkness of the room, then began to hunch himself forward, first on left buttock, then on right, while pulling with the strength of his forearms, upturned hands gripping the window bottom. Outside, his feet kicked in the night air, until he pressed his heels against the side of the house and used that leverage, too. He was moving. The curl of plywood pressed against his right hip, but he was moving, inexorably moving, and all at once the plywood let him through. Gravity took over. It took over too soon, before he was ready, before he was clear of the building. Two screws laid tracks of sharp awful pain upward along his torso, and he couldn’t twist away. His flailing left hand hit the wedged bar and grabbed it, pulling it loose, and the plywood snapped back down onto him like a mousetrap, scraping the entire upper half of his body as it squeezed him like toothpaste out of the building. Eleven feet below this window was the ground, dark thin mountainous soil full of boulders and rocks. Most of Hall’s parts hit rocks when he landed, most significantly the headsized rock he hit with the back of his own head. He was unconscious then, but didn’t know it. On automatic pilot, he struggled to his feet, straightened, and marched into the wall of the house. Correcting, he spun himself about, lost his balance, found his balance, and headed off downhill, reeling forward, still clutching the metal bar in his left hand, only staying upright because his feet still knew their job was to stay, if possible, directly beneath his head.

Plunging in this way, his head hurtling down the mountain while his feet scrambled to keep up, he legged it some distance from the house, and might even have gone on like that all the way to the valley if his head had only been alert enough to tell his feet to avoid that tree. Concussed for the second time, Hall dropped onto his back like a delivery of curtain rods. His extremities twitched, then lay still. A frown gradually faded from his brow as, off to his left, the sun at last put in an appearance. ["_Toc156052622"] 56 MARK GOT BACK TOthe lodge a little after nine in the morning, and the brown Taurus was already there, tucked in next to Os’s white Porsche. Putting his mother’s handme-down Buick Regal in next to the others, he was happy to see that Taurus, because it meant the union guys had not funked. He himself had almost funked, damn near funked. After yesterday’s traumatic experience of having Monroe Hall recognize his voice, on top of the tension and disbelief connected with actuallydoingthis thing, he had, after returning the horse and its carrier with Os, spent the rest of a mostly sleepless night in his miserable basement he rest oroom under his mother€™s off-limits mansion thinking about what he could possibly do now, and what he- mainly thought about was funking it. Caving in. Being a quitter. Giving up the whole idea. Of course, he- tried not to phrase it in such negative terms during those wakeful hours. He- tried for a more positive spin in his internal debate, telling himself he could “start over,†he could “reinvent himself,†he could “wipe the slate clean,†he could, in the Mark Twain way, “light out for the Territories.†Isn’t that, after all, what it really means to be an American? All of the current resistance to a national identification card (and many years ago, for the same reason, to the Social Security number), all of the alarm about the threats to “privacy,†are based on the simple American conviction, from the very beginning of the immigrant experience, that it was the ultimate right of every American, if circumstances happened to call for such drastic measures, to turn himself into somebody new. The classless society was the ideal partly because, in a classless society, all identity is flexible. Mark, in his sleepless hours of not so much battling funk as welcoming funk aboard, had used every shred of schooling he could dredge out of memory to convince himself that at this point of crisis in his life, it would be not only acceptable, it would be not only guilt-free, but it would be damn near his patriotic duty, to run away and become somebody else.

And yet he hadn’t done it. Along toward dawn, he had sunk into a heavy troubled slumber, and when the alarm jolted him awake no time later he knew, grimly, that he wouldn’t be doing his patriotic duty as a turn-tail-and-run after all. There are no Territories to light out for, not in this century. It was no longer easy to become the new you. New or old, you were already you. So that’s what it came down to. He was Mark Sterling, of a certain background and a certain position in the community, and he always would be. He had started on this path, and the only thing to do was keep on it. And keep his mouth shut, particularly around Monroe Hall. So it was a relief to see the Taurus, because it meant they were all in agreement: Therewasno way out of this. If the union men had successfully bagged it, Mark would have felt even worse than before, but they had not, so he felt marginally better. Entering the house, he found an empty but astonishingly messy living room with faint sounds of activity far ahead. Following those sounds, he came eventually to a kitchen containing all four of his co-conspirators, plus more mess than a kindergartner’s birthday party. Breakfast was being made, with more enthusiasm than precision, all over the kitchen, using most of the pots, plates, cutting boards, cutlery, silverware, and electric gadgets formerly in the cupboards and on the shelves. Os was the most covered with flour, Ace the most covered with egg in varying degrees of congealment. It was as though they- been hired by biased researchers to prove male incompetence in the kitchen. Os noticed Mark first::h, there you are. We’re almost ready here.†Mac waved toward him a maple-syrup-smeared hand, and said, “I hope you haven’t had breakfast yet.†“I haven’t,†Mark agreed, looking around,;ut I’m not sure I’maroulefre I’m hungry.†“It’s gonna be great,†Buddy assured him. ?irst, of course,†Os said, “we have to not feed Monroe Hall, and then feed the butler. Then we can bring most of this back down here-well, not downhere, I think the dining room would be more welcomingznd tuck in to a hearty meal.†Mark couldn’t help it: “Like the condemned man?†Os frowned at him in surprise, “What’s wrong withyou?†Mark shook his head. “Not enough sleep,†he said, knowing it would be impossible to explain that what was wrong with him was that there weren’t any Territories any more. Buddy said, “You know about the reward?†“Reward?†All he could think of was receiving a gold star. But who would present it, and for what?

Mac explained, “Somebody, the wife, I guess, put up fifty thousand dollars for information leading to the return of Monroe Hall.†?ifty thousand?†Mark grimaced.?or Monroe Hall? That’s not much.†Buddy said, О wants to collect it.†:nd why not?†Ace demanded.?ifty grand for information? Wegotthe information.†Mark said, “Os?†Os shrugged. “It’s up to his friends in the labor movement,†he said, “to draw for Ace the direct line between that information and the jail cell.†“There’s a way,†Ace insisted. “We just haven’t thought it through yet.†Mac said, “We’re ready here.†Pointing, he said, “That’s the breakfast we show Hall but don’t let him eat, and that’s the breakfast for the butler. And all the rest of it is for us.†Os said,;uddy, why don’t you carry the butler’s tray, while Ace carries Hall’s tray?†Ace said, “That’s because we’re labor, right? And you’re management.†“Of course,†Os said.:nd also why I’ll be carrying the laptop.†Mac said, “Masks.†So everybody put the dumb masks on, Buddy picked up a small tray of breakfast while Ace picked up a large tray of breakfast, and they all trooped upstairs. Buddy put the butler€™s breakfast on a side table in the corridor and Os picked up the laptop from where theyleft it leaning against the wall, while Mark went down to the circuit breaker box at the end of the corridor. He waited there until Os inserted the key into Hall’s door and nodded to him, then switched the lights on in Hall’s room as Os unlocked the door and everybody pushed in. Mark came back, entered the room, and saw everybody milling around. He said, “Where’s Hall?†“Hiding or something,†Os said. He sounded irritable. Ъmn it, Hall!†he said, raising his voice. “Stop playing the fool!†“You two shouldn’t be talking,†Mac pointed out. Oops; Mark put fingertips against his mouth. Ace had put the tray on the bed, then looked under it. They looked into the closet and into the bathroom. Then they stood in the middle of the guest room and looked at one another, baffled and silent, until Mac said, “How come that window’s open?†They all clustered around the plywood-shielded window. Now that they looked at it, they could see that the plywood was pushed outward from the sill along the bottom and part of the left side, held away by the screws that had once held it down. Tentative, unbelieving, Buddy

pushed on the plywood, and it moved. Mac, in awe, said, “He got out.†“Then,†Os said, “wehad better get out. Who knows how long ago he escaped?†“Iknewit!†Mark said. If only he- funked, after all. If only there were Territories! They hurried from Monroe Hall’s former prison to the corridor, leaving breakfast behind, and turned toward the staircase. Going by the other tray of breakfast, Mark said, “The butler!†They all stopped. They all looked at the butler’s breakfast, and then at Mark. Mac said, “Maybe Hall took him along.†Os said, “Hall? Look out for somebody else?â€

Mark said, “We have to let him out.†“Here.†Os pulled the other key from his pocket. =o what you want; I’m getting far from here.†Not far enough, Mark thought. Not all the way to the Territories. Thinking that, he hurried back down the corridor, fumbled with the key in the lock, finally got it to turn, pushed open the door, stepped into the room and, just one second too late, saw that chair swinging like a runaway satellite around the edge of the door, swiftly in his direction at, well, at head height. ["_Toc156052623"] 57 THE SLOPE WAS STEEP, but he could hand himself down from tree trunk to tree trunk, most of the time managing to stay on his feet. As the sun rose higher, off to his left, the chill in the air grew less, but he didn’t mind the chill, really; the exercise of walking down the mountain kept him warm. His head ached, and other parts of him hurt, while different parts stung. There was an intermittent buzzing in his ears, and from time to time his eyes lost their focus and he had to cling to a tree until he could see clearly age un pa…ain. But it wasn’t so bad, and when he came across the road it got even better. The road was one lane, dirt, not much more than a pair of rutted grooves angling diagonally across his downward path. It descended leftward, so he followed it, because it was easier to walk on a real road, and he had no clear destination in mind. It was just important, it seemed to him, to walk down from the mountain. It was just as well there were no mirrors or streams or other ways to see himself along the way, because his appearance had not been improved by recent events. His red-check flannel shirt was redder than before, with dried blood, and sported two irregular long gashes up the back. His tailored blue jeans were ripped here and there, splotched with grass stains, and with the left hip pocket half torn off, to dangle like a warning flag. His dark leather cowboy boots were so mud-stained you could no longer see the pictures of cactus plants on their sides. His hair was a tangled snarl, his face and hands streaked with dirt and dried blood, and his eyes had a strange look, like a fish tank overdue for cleaning. He walked for a while down the small dirt road, and then it met a slightly larger road, twolane blacktop, that angled down to the right. Blacktop was better than dirt, so he took it. The first house he passed had been abandoned a long time ago. Half the roof was collapsed in, and much of the front porch had sagged completely away from the house. He stopped to look at it, slumped there, shadowed by the trees, then decided that wouldn’t be a good place to stop, so he kept walking.

After a while, a pickup truck passed him, going the same direction he was; it came down from up behind him, and kept going. He watched it go and thought it would be nice to ride in the pickup truck instead of walking, but he didn’t wave or shout or do anything but just kept on as before. The next vehicle he met was coming up the mountain toward him. It was some sort of police car, with a red dome light on the roof. The dome light was switched off and the car drove uphill at normal speed. It seemed the car would just go on by, like the pickup truck, but then it stopped when it was opposite him and the driver’s window lowered. Beneath the opening window was a picture of a silver badge painted on the door, withSHERIFF in large letters superimposed on it, plus other things in smaller letters. The driver of the car was a rawboned man of forty or fifty or sixty, wearing a brown uniform and a darker brown necktie and the kind of broad-brimmed hat the Parks Department people wear. He looked out and called, “You okay?†“Just fine.†He kept walking, slowly, and smiled at the sheriff. “Hold on there a second.†He stopped, and the sheriff backed off the road, put his blinker lights on but not the dome light, and got out of the car. He had a handgun in a holster on a separate belt that he adjusted before he walked across the road and said, in a friendly manner, “You staying around here?†=own that way.†He gestured at the road ahead. “Youont lst">“You look as though you been in an accident.†=o I?†“Yes, you do.†The sheriff studied him, particularly his eyes. “Haveyou been in an accident?†“Well, I don’t think so.†“You don’t think so.†The sheriff took a minute to study his boots and his shirt. Then he looked him in the eye again. “I don’t think I recognize your face,†he said. “We don’t get a lot of visitors up in here. Would you mind telling me your name?†“I don’t mind,†he said. The sheriff waited. Then he looked a little irritated, as though somebody were pulling his leg. “You don’tmind? I asked you what your name is.†“Well,†he said, “I don’t think I know that just right now.†“You don’t know your name?†“Not this minute, no. Do you think I should?†“Most people find it a help. Would you have your wallet on you?â€

Surprised, he said, “I don’t know.†“Would you like to take a look? A lot of folk keep it in their right hip pocket.†:ll right.†He patted his right hip pocket. “There’ssomethingin there.†“Why don’t we take a look at it?†:ll right.†His fingers stinging, he tugged it out of the pocket and held it open in two hands so he could look down at it. “It doesn’t seem like I can read it.†“Would you like me to read it for you?†“Oh, thank you,†he said, and smiled, and handed the thing to the sheriff.

The sheriff dipped his head, and his eyes disappeared behind the brim of his hat as he looked at the wallet. “Is it all right? Does it tell you what my name is?†“Oh, yes.†When the sheriff’s head lifted, he was smiling. “What does it say?†“It says,†the sheriff told him, “your name is fifty thousand dollars.†["_Toc156052624"] 58 DORTMUNDER FOLLOWED THE CHAIRout of the room as though it had yanked him out, stumbling over the suddenly fallen foe, trying to redirect the chair at the still-vertical masked men all around him, but finding it was a chair with a fin The chair’s sudden stop sent Dortmunder whirling into an orbit of his own, basically another curve leading farther down the corridor. He lashed his fists out in all directions, trying to connect on this crowd of jumping shouting masked people, but nobody laid a glove on nobody, and there ahead of him was a broad staircase leading down, at which he flung himself as though it were a swimming pool on a hot day. Three and four steps at a time, he hurtled down the staircase, and there ahead was a big messy lodge room in semidarkness because all its windows were covered, but over there was a half-open door with daylight behind it, and through that door he went, like a light-seeking missile. Porch. Launch across the porch,bom bomdown the wide echoing wooden steps, and off he went down the gravel drive, past the three cars parked there, and on. Away. Away from that place, whatever it was, and those people, whoever they were, and away. The gravel drive went steeply downhill, which was good, since they had arrived here by traveling steeply uphill. So this must be the way to civilization, or at least to somewhere without those idiots back there. He chanced a quick look over his shoulder, and the very large lodge-gee, it was big, and he was seeing it for the first time-looked deserted back there, despite the three cars parked in front of it. He was at least a football field away from the place already, and the strange thing was, nobody was chasing him. What was going on here? He stopped, breathing very hard, and looked up at the lodge, and for a long minute nothing happened. Then, in a rush, three guys carrying boxes and bags came running out onto the porch and down to the drive, where they stuffed all their goods into the trunk of the Taurus. Then they jumped into the Taurus themselves. No, no, not good. They- get down here in no time. And of course, they must have seen him already. Nevertheless, he turned off the long gravel drive into the neatened woods to his

right, and hid himself behind the widest tree he could find, which wasn’t actually that wide. Up the hill, the Taurus coughed into life with a lot of unnecessary revving of engine and grinding of gears. It backed and filled, then came rushing down the drive and on past the semihidden Dortmunder, and away. They never even looked in his direction. They were all without their masks, and all three stared straight ahead, willing themselves to be somewhere else. What was going on here? All of a sudden, they’re leaving the place, but not because they want to chase the butler, but for some other reason. What other reason? What’s happening? Dortmunder had started to trudge back out toward the drive from the woods when suddenly here came the white Porsche. The driver, who was also not wearing a mask, had a grim skull-like quality as he glowered at the road ahead. He looked mostly like the officer in charge of Special Punishments at a federal penitentiary. Beside him, a guy lay back as far as the seat would let him. White towels, some of them with red polka dots, covered most of his head and face. One hand held the towels, the other hand lld trear hand lay out of sight beside him. Again, like the first three, they just tore on by, not even bothering to look at him, where he stood completely in the open, just to the side of the road. What was happening? What were they up to now? And, come to think of it, where was Monroe Hall? They didn’t kill him, did they, those clowns? It was true Dortmunder and his crew meant to do their automobile dealing with the insurance company, but the insurance company, in turn, would have to work with Hall. If Hall was dead, and there was some sort of estate in charge of the cars and everything else, they could just forget it. But why would he be dead? Why would these people go through all this stuff of the masks and hiding their voices if they just meant to kill him? Dortmunder looked up at the lodge. Now itreallyseemed empty, even though one car was still parked out front, a kind of goldy-green Buick. But the front door had been left open and there was just that aura up there of a house with nobody inside. What had they done with Hall? Dortmunder needed Hall; he- spent a lot of time and effort on this job; he needed the son of a bitch so he could rob him. There was nothing for it. Sighing, shaking his head, reflecting yet again on the unfairness of life, Dortmunder slogged back up to the lodge, entered it, switched on lights-well, at least the electricity was still onznd proceeded to search the place. It didn’t take long to find the room where Hall had been kept, just down the corridor from his own. Nor did it take long to figure out how Hall had managed his escape. But what

had he used to pry with? Talk about unfair; in Dortmunder’s room there had been absolutely nothing to pry with, but in this rich guy’s room, who’s got more than he needs already, what has he got? A prybar. Dortmunder turned away from the breached window, looked around the room, and saw the big tray of breakfast on the bed. Come to think of it, he was goddamn hungry. There was a kind of vanity in the room, with a chair in front of it, so Dortmunder put the tray there, sat in front of it, and set to.

The tray hadn’t been on the bed for long, so the cold things on it were still cold and the hot things were still hot. Orange juice, excellent. Homemade pancakes, with butter and maple syrup-what could be wrong? Scrambled eggs and bacon, both done just exactly the way he liked it.Fourpieces of white toast, just enough, with a choice of orange marmalade or strawberry jam.Verygood coffee. Whoo, you could feel somewhat better about life after a meal like that. You could also feel like going to the bathroom, which would have been all right except, when he flushed, it wouldn’t do it. The thing was broken somehow. Dortmunder lifted the water closet lid, looked in at it, and grew suspicious. Walking down the hall past the chair embedded in the wall and back into his previous room, he entered the bathroom, lifted the water closet lid, and found what Monroe Hall had used as a prybar. Oh. Hmm. Pretty good, damn it. ["_Toc156052625"] 59 ZELKEV DIDN’T LIKE THEordinary array of targets on the gunnery range. The hulking guys†sighting down pistols were not for him. He preferred a good Nativity scene, a number of lambs and Magi and so forth to pop with his two trusty Glocks, or possibly a Crucifixion, working his way around from the nails in wrists and ankles to the crown of thorns to a few quick rounds in the sword-slice in the side. Of course, his absolute favorite was St. Sebastian, he of the soulful look while his entire body was studded with thick long arrow shafts, so that he would mostly make you think of a condominium for birds. Zelkev just loved to pop St. Sebastian, using both Glocks at once, sinking one cartridge into each arrow wound, then finishing with a double hit right in the center of old Seb’s nose. He could shoot St. Sebastians all day, and would, too, even using the same target over and over, around and around, if he didn’t know better, know what it could do to him. Control the impulses, don’t let yourself get into endless repetitions, the repetitions building the mania, the mania feeding on itself, the St. Sebastians shredding into the unrecognizable and still the desire growing for more, that’s where the darkness lay, that was the loss of control that had to be guarded against.

(Upstairs in the embassy, they knew. When it would happen that his laughter, deep and rolling, would rise up from the gunnery range in the embassy’s subbasement, louder than the shooting, the security people knew it was time to descendКutiously-talk with Zelkev, call him by name-â€How are you, Zelkev?†“When do you think this rain will stop, Zelkev?â€:re those new shoes, Zelkev?â€-until it was possible to disarm him, take him upstairs, medicate him, and not permit him to leave the embassy grounds for three or four days.) Well, that hadn’t happened for months now, six months, seven, something like that. He- been good; he- kept himself under control; he- not let any of the little dark imps run away with him. On the other hand, he hadn’t had any work to do either, not for such a long time. You can’t practice forever. St. Sebastian fills in for only so long. This afternoon, he rode the elevator up from the gunnery range feeling logy, out of shape and out of sorts, and when he stepped out to the second-floor corridor where his room was, Ulffin was just coming down toward him and stopped to say, “I was just sent for you.†“I have done nothing,†Zelkev said. “Memli wants a word with you,†Ulffin told him. “I’ll wash, and then see him. I’ve been shooting.†Of course, he- always been shooting, but it was necessary to say these things. “I’ll tell him,†and Ulffin scuttled off, afraid of him as they all were afraid of him, though when had he ever harmed anyone in the embassy? Never. His room was a monk’s cell, with its hard single bed, small metal dresser, metal table with the television set on it, metal chair. A tall man, angular, with close-cropped blond hair and a square boxlike head ha al…d featuring unemotional blue eyes, a small sharp-looking nose, and narrow bloodless lips, Zelkev stepped through into his bathroom, washed the shooting from his face and hands, returned to the bedroom to change to a cleaner and more formal shirt and pants, then went downstairs to the main floor and Memli’s office. He moved with a certain stiffness, as though at one point he- been taken apart and then a bit awkwardly put back together again, but in fact he could move with a great deal of grace and control, when necessary. Memli, who always wore his army uniform in a useless attempt to distract from the sloppiness of his body, was Zelkev’s superior officer at the embassy, the military attachй. He looked up from his desk when Zelkev entered his office, tried not to look frightened, and said,:h, Zelkev, good news. Harbin has been found.†Zelkev smiled, an honest smile of pleasure and anticipation. He seated himself across from Memli and said, “In America?†“Oh, yes, he’s still in America.†Memli looked with some satisfaction at documents on his desk. “You remember, we- learned he- bought a new identification.â€

;lanchard.†“Oh, you remember the name, good.†“He got away from me,†Zelkev said, with remembered annoyance. “I never forget the ones that get away from me.†“Well, here’s your second chance.†Memli held up a document, gazed from it to Zelkev.?redric Eustace Blanchard. He has taken a position in rural Pennsylvania. There was some criminal activity that got into the newspapers, and a friend noticed Blanchard’s name. He is acting as personal private secretary to a disgraced American businessman named Monroe Hall.â€

The name meant nothing to Zelkev. Only the name Fredric Eustace Blanchard meant anything to him. He said, “You have the address?†“He’s in a protected compound.†“So many of them are.†“Unfortunately,†Memli said, “we still don’t have a photograph. Not since the plastic surgery was done.†“I don’t care what he looks like,†Zelkev said, and stood to take the document from Memli. “Good-bye,†he said. ["_Toc156052626"] 60 DOES A KIDNAPPER REPORTa stolen car? On the other hand, did Dortmunder want to go wandering the highways and byways of ruralest Pennsylvania just waiting to catch the eye of some curious cop? Or did he want to slink around in the most out-of-the-way places he could find, on his way to going to ground? The problem was, he just couldn’t see himself slipping back into the role of John Howard Rumsey, butler to the murdered and the kidnapped. There would be cops all over the Hall compound, and for the once-missing butler they- have a thousand questions. Also, since he- gone off at the same time as bothne od-b… the kidnappers and the kidnappee, there would certainly be at least one or two of those cops who- want to know just exactly which of those categories they should place him in. Jim Green’s recycled identifications had worked for background checks during the employment phase, but would John Rumsey make it through a total acid-bath investigation? Let’s not find out the answer to that. Having finished Hall’s breakfast and his own study of the lodge where he- been held captive, Dortmunder had gone back outside to inspect the one car those clowns hadn’t taken off in, being the greeny-gold Buick Regal. He hotwired it and drove it down from the mountain, getting lost a couple of times on little nothing dirt or gravel roads that seemed to be doing all right until he- realize they- gradually veered around and were now headeduphill. No, no, we’ve been uphill, let’s find us some valley for a while. Which he finally did, and then found a blacktop road, and then at last an intersection with signs. The Buick contained a Pennsylvania roadmap in the driver’s door pocket, and with its help he made his way across the state to Shickshinny, being very careful to stay on secondary roads. A dubious butler would create suspicion enough; a dubious butler in a hotznd hotwiredКr would be just a little too much. Taking these routes, it was so long before he turned in at the driveway to Chester’s house that he was late for lunch, but that wasn’t the primary consideration. The small

one-car garage was just to the left of the house; leaving the Buick in front of it, Dortmunder went over to ring the front doorbell, and after a minute the door was opened by Grace Fallon, who gave him a surprised look, then a kind of critical once-over: “Well, look atyou.†Another distraction. “What about me?†“Well, you’re dressed nice,†she allowed,;ut other than that you look like a bum. Not shaved, dirt all over you, you didn’t even comb your hair.†“I don’t have a comb.†“You’ve got fingers,†she pointed out. Enough. Dortmunder said, “My question is, is Chester here?†She frowned. “Why?†Кuse I wanna know if his car is here,†Dortmunder told her, realizing the only way to handle this was to make as open and full a case as he possibly could.:nd the reason I wanna know that is, if his carisn’there, I wanna put that Buick over there in the garage, and the reason I wanna do that is because I stole it. We up to speed now?†“Well, you don’t have to get huffy,†she said. “Is his car in there?†“No,†she admitted.;ut I’m not sure he- like you to put a stolen car inside there in its place.†“He’s gonna love it,†Dortmunder said. Chester’s garage was as messy as most garages, which was sort of a surprise. Youthink a driver would have You- cold have a different attitude toward garages, but apparently not. Still, there was just enough room to squeeze the Buick in, open the door partway until it hit the snowblower and the wheelbarrow and the sack of fertilizer, and squeeze himself out. He shut the garage door, walked back to the house, and she was still standing there in the doorway, arms folded, frowning. He nodded to her, wanting to make nice. “I’ll move it when Chester gets back,†he said. ?ine.†:nd you’re right, I’m very dirty. If I took a shower, what could I wear afterwards?†: different house,†she said. xcept for security,†Kelp said. :nd Mrs. Parsons,†Cavanaugh said. Kelp turned away, to go over to his own desk and start making the calls, but then he turned back to say, “I have to tell you, I still don’t get it. Why all of a sudden sell this place?†Again the lawyers looked at each other, and this time Wills was the one who shrugged, then turned to say to Kelp, “This is speculation on our part, and we would prefer you not

to pass it on.†“We’ll tell you our speculation,†Cavanaugh explained, Кuse you are being impacted by what’s happening here.†“Mr. Hall’s assets are controlled by the courts,†Wills said,:nd yet, he lived here beyond what means he should have had. There is a theory he had additional assets in offshore accounts.†Cavanaugh said, “No one knows that for sure.†;ut,†Wills said, “ifthose accounts exist, Monroe Hall would be the only one who could access them. Who would know the numbers, the passwords.†“Oh,†Kelp said,:nd he’s lost his memory.†" Kelp sat at his desk across the room from the lawyers and fielded phone calls and arranged for staff to come in for their farewell interviews, which several of them took badly, pointing out years of faithful service, sacrifices made, the decision to stay on with Hall even after the world had turned against him, but what was anybody to do? This party was over. Those few human beings in the world not yet shafted by Monroe Hall were now getting their turn. Including, Kelp realized, the wife. It was Hall’s bone-deep selfishness that would have kept him from protecting Mrs. Hall, providing for her, writing down those secret account numbers and passwords and leaving them somewhere for her to find. But what wouldhecare what happened, if he wasn’t around? In Kelp’s mind’s eye, a whole lot of hundred-dollar bills with wings attached flew across a blue sky and disappeared over a black mountain in the distance. No, thousand-dollar bills. Gone. Forever. " It was eleven-thirty, and the lawyers were just finishing the last o werf te last of the staff interviews when the phone rang and Kelp answered, as usual, “Hall residence.†“Robert Wills, please.†“Who’s calling?†?rank Simmons of Automotive Heritage Museum.†What? What can this mean? Nothing good. Bland as ever, Kelp turned in his chair and said to Wills across the room,?or you. Frank Simmons of Automotive Heritage Museum.†“Yes, got it, thank you.†It was very hard for Kelp to hang up, not listen to this conversation, but he managed. Wills spoke briefly, then hung up and said to Kelp,;lanchard, call the gate, will you? There’ll be some flatbed trucks arriving, in about half an hour.â€

Worse and worse. Reaching for the phone, Kelp said, “Sure. Uh, what are they for?†“The antique cars,†Wills said. “You know about the antique cars stored on the property here?†“I’ve heard of them,†Kelp acknowledged. “Technically, since the bankruptcy proceedings,†Wills said, “they’ve belonged to the Automotive Heritage Museum. With the changed situation here, the museum wants to move them to their own property, for safekeeping.†“Their own property.†“Yes, in Florida. I understand it’s a beautiful place, glass-walled buildings, views of the Gulf, all completely climate-controlled.†“They’ve been wanting to get their hands on these cars for years,†Cavanaugh said. “Hall always managed to fend them off, but that’s over now.†“I guess it is,†Kelp agreed.

“It’s a better place for them, really,†Cavanaugh said. “They have thousands of visitors a year. Here, no one ever got to see the cars.†“Yeah, that’s right,†Kelp said, and turned away to call the gate, while the lawyers finished their final interview, with a raspy-voiced housemaid who now announced this firing was the best thing ever happened toher, she was going to herownclimate-controlled glasswalled building in Florida and live on her sister for a while. Who did this? Kelp silently demanded of the world, as he made the call to the gate. What clown had to go andkidnapMonroe Hall and louse up what was going to be a very beautiful piece of work? May he suffer, the louse. ["_Toc156052628"] 62 IT WAS THE BESTday’s sleep Mark had had in a good long time, maybe ever. Partly it was the hospital bed, infinitely adjustable, beautifully comforting, but mostly it was because, at long last, his conscience was clear. When Os had driven Mark down the mountain from that lodge, Mark had known he was in deep trouble, both physically and legally. Physically, as it turned out in the hospital’s emergency room, that chair had given him a broken jaw, broken nose, and torn ear. But legally, as he was painfully aware, he was in even worse shape. Monroe Hall and the butler were both gone, escaped from the lodge. Both could identify the lodge, which would mean the authorities would soon find Os, a relative of the lodge’s owner and a sworn enemy of Hall. Even if Os didn’t immediately give them Markznd why wouldn’t he? Mark knew game theory as well as Os, and the first to turn gets the best deal{ut even if Os did the unlikely and even selfless thing and kept his mouth shut, sooner or later the authorities would come to Mark, as Os’s closest associate, and insist he speak out loud in Monroe Hall’s presence. “That’s him! That’s the voice I heard!†After the jaw and the nose had been set and the ear sewed up, Mark had been moved from the emergency room to this plain-to-barren single room, where he- had nothing to do but think about the position he was in. A television set hung from the wall opposite the bed, reminding him unhappily of the butler’s chair jutting from the wall at the lodge, but it wouldn’t function until his credit card cleared, which, a self-satisfied nurse informed him, would be in twenty-four hours. You can buy a Cartier watch and only have to wait thirty seconds after the card has been swiped along the doohickey, but in a hospital it takes twentyfour hours. And they talk about advances in medicine. Well, it was just as well he didn’t have television to distract him, or so he thought. It gave him time to consider his position, and his options. Not that he needed a whole lot of

time, nor did he have, on reflection, a whole lot of options. Fifteen minutes after he was left alone in the room he reached for the telephone on his bedside table, grateful that at least this appliance didn’t need twenty-four hours to be activated, and phoned his lawyer. “Iss is Ark,†he told the receptionist, which is what the jaw would now permit him to say.:rk Sterling.†The ensuing conversation was slow and difficult, but he did at last convince Dan Richards, his family attorney, that he needed a lawyer by his bedside, Saturday or no Saturday, before the cops arrived, as inevitably they would. Dan promised to send someone good from a firm closer at hand, but no lawyer had yet appeared when the plainclothes cop came in, unmistakable even without the badge on its leather carrier dangling from his shirt pocket. A bored, slender guy with black hair, short for a cop, grinned at Mark and said, “I’m Detective Cohan, Quentin Cohan.†“I’ll talk,†Mark said, not entirely accurately,›n ny lawyer gets ere.†“Oh, really.†Detective Cohan was both surprised and pleased, not having expected juice from this interview. No longer bored, he said,?ine by me, Mr. Sterling. I got nothing but time.†Seating himself in one of the two visitors’ chairs, Detective Cohan pulled a crossword puzzle magazine from his casual jacket pocket and amused himself for half an hour until a man who looked like central casting’s idea of a lawyer walked in. Bald head on top, black gorse around the en toe end the ears. Pinstripe suit, white shirt, patterned red-and-yellow tie. Black briefcase dangling from left hand. Skinny black-framed eyeglasses that reflected the light. Watch on left wrist big enough and shiny enough to be the entire control panel on aStar Trekship. Looking from Mark to Detective Cohan, apparently unable to sort them out, he said, “Mark Sterling?†›re,†Mark said, and raised a hand. ›ldron Gold,†the lawyer said. “The Richards firm sent me. Is this police officer arresting you?†“Not yet,†Detective Cohan said, with a happy smile, as he stood and put away his crossword puzzles. Eldron Gold said to Mark, “Would you like to speak to me privately before you answer the officer’s questions?†“No,†Mark said. “I just ant to get it other ith.†Detective Cohan stepped closer, still smiling, opening a small notebook. “Good idea,†he said. Mark took a deep breath. “Thor other theothle and I kidnathed Nonroe Hall,†he said.

“Wait!†shouted Eldron, over some pleased exclamation of Cohan’s.:re yousurewe shouldn’t talk first?†“No, it’s all right,†Mark assured him. “You’ll see.†To Detective Cohan he said, “Thigh oth us kidnathed Nonroe Hall.†“This iscompletelyunacceptable,†Eldron interrupted. “In a hospital setting, my client is sedated, he’s not responsible for his statements, absolutelynoneof this would be acceptable in a court of law.†“It’s okay, it’s okay,†Mark told his mouthpiece, patting the bed to calm the lawyer down. “Objections noted, Counselor,†Detective Cohan said. He didn’t seem troubled. Mark said to Eldron, “I hath to get this out. This isn’t easy thor ne to say.†Detective Cohan smiled upon him. “We know that,†he assured him. “Go on, Mark.†:ll right.†Mark took a deep breath as his lawyer hopped around like the boy on the burning deck, and went on. “We kett Hall at my thriend’s thanily lodge uh-state thon ere. We also took the utt-ler, utt that was an accident. They oath got away. The utt-ler hit ne with a chair.†At last Gold interrupted, saying, “Sterling, are yousurewe shouldn’t discuss this, you and I?Justyou and I?†: little late, Counselor,†the happy Detective Cohan said. “Tell us about the other four, Mark.†=on’t!†Ignoring Eldron, Mark said, “One is ny izness thartner, Osthourne Thaulk. The other three are, uh, union nenthers. I don’t know the union.†“Their names will do,†Detective Cohan said. “Well, they’re Nac, Thuddy and Ace.†Both Eldron and Detective Cohan leaned in closer. Detective Cohan said, “Would that be Mac, Buddy, and Ace?†“Yes. Os knows Thuddy’s real nane, I think, I don’t know ith he knows the others.†Then Mark sighed, his story told, happy to be unburdened. It took Detective Cohan a while to realize the story was now complete. He had another half hour of questions, intermixed with useless objections from Lawyer Gold, but Mark had essentially told the whole story right at the beginning. Once he- done so, he felt much better about things. He knew he- been first to turn state’s evidence, which would mean theycome to him first for testimony against the others, which meant he would be treated more leniently than everybody else. What a relief.

Such a relief, in fact, that when Detective Cohan and Lawyer Gold finally left, Mark fell immediately and deeply asleep, and remained asleep for most of the day. The shadows outside the hospital room window were long and amber when at last he stirred, stretched, smiled, stopped smiling because it made his jaw hurt, and then remembered where he was and everything that had happened. What a terrific sleep, after so much tension and worry! That was the moment he told himself it was probably the best day’s sleep of his life, and just the fact of it reassured him he- made the right decision. Betraying one’s friends and associates, it turned out, wasn’t something to agonize over or regret. No, it was merely an unfortunate possibility in life, as much so for Os and the union men as for himself. One was sorry to find that one had reached that point in one’s life, but then one accepted the reality and got on with it. He had got on with it, and everything was betteror himzs a result. Smiling again, though more carefully, he turned his head, and there was Detective Cohan, smiling right back at him from the visitor’s chair. He was a very happy boy. “So you’re awake, are you?†“Oh, yes. God, I theel rested.†“Good.†Detective Cohan rose and came over to smile down on Mark.: lot has happened while you’ve been asleep,†he said. “I thought it would.†“We went looking for this Osbourne Faulk,†Detective Cohan told him,:nd it turns out, he- already fled the country.†Mark blinked. “Thled?†“Went straight to Brazil. I doubt we’ll ever get our hands on him.†=i-ruh-Thra-†No; impossible to say the name of that country. “Why not?†he asked instead. “Well, there’s no extradition treaty between the United States and Brazil,†Detective Cohan explained. “Onceectim" “Once he’s there, there’s no way we can get our hands on him.†“ThereareTerritories!†Mark cried. “Sure,†Detective Cohan said,: number of territories around the world without that extradition treaty. Most of them you wouldn’t want to go to, but Brazil isn’t bad. Rio, you know. Very tall women in bikinis, the way I understand it.†“What athout-What athout Nac and Thuddy and Ace?†“Well, you don’t know their real names, and you don’t know what union they’re in,†Detective Cohan pointed out. “Your friend Osbourne may have known at least one real name, but he’s long gone, and believe me, there are dozens of Macs and

Buddies and Aces in every union in the United States.†“So I’m the only one you’ve got.†“I’m afraid it gets worse, Mark,†Detective Cohan said, with his pleasant smile. Mark had always hated it when policemen called him by his first name, thinking they were doing it only because he was upper-class and they weren’t, but he suspected this was not the time to make an issue of it. He said, “How could it get worse?†“Well, they found Monroe Hall,†Detective Cohan told him.?ound him wandering around, had some concussions, hit his head a lot.†“I didn’t do that. None oth us did that.†“No, no, nobody’s accusing you, don’t worry about that. The point is, all those bumps to the head, Monroe Hall’s got amnesia.†“Well, if anythody deserthes-†But then it hit him. “Hewhat?†“No memory,†Detective Cohan said, and waved a hand beside his head as though saying good-bye to his brain. “The doctors say, he’ll never get his memory back, it’s all gone.†“Inthossi-Inthoss-â€

;ut true. Also, just by the way, it seems the butler has disappeared. John Howard Rumsey. Nowhere to be found. It’s beginning to look like, up there in the wilderness where he ran away from you people, a city man like that, something went wrong. Maybe he fell in a mountain tarn, or could be he met up with a bear. Anyway, gone. We’ll keep looking, but it doesn’t seem hopeful.†“Tough,†Mark said, not seeing any connection with himself, and already bitter about not learning of Monroe Hall’s amnesia until too late. But Detective Cohan was not finished with his cheerful smiles and his bad news.:ll in all, Mark,†he said, “it’s a good thing you spoke. Without you, we-neverhave found that lodge, or you, or your friend Faulk’s name, or anything. Yes, sir, Mark, without you coming forward the way you did, the entire Monroe Hall kidnapping would have remained a complete mystery forever. I’ll send your lawyer in now, shall I?†["_Toc156052629"] 63 AT LEAST WHEN HEchauffeured Mrs. Hall, Stan got to drive a good car, a black Daimler like a sofa converted to a tank. Also, while she was in the hospital and while she was at her lawyer’s office, instead of trailing after her as with Mrs. Parsons, he got to stay at the wheel and read his newspaper, his wrong-size hat on the seat beside him. And driving between the hospital and the lawyer’s office, he got to hear at least parts of her several telephone conversations, which didn’t sound at all good. She told more than one person that “poor Monroe†had lost his memory forever, and it wasn’t ever coming back, and that meant there was permanently no way to get at “you know,†which he guessed would be money in banks where she didn’t know the secret word. She also talked about “liquidating†this and that, which from a mob guy would have meant somebody was gonna die but which from a respectable married lady meant something along the lines of a visit to the hock-shop. She also told a few people shebe very last one,†Kelp said.›xcept the Pierce-Arrow. The missus is taking that withherto Maryland.†“They’re closin shop,†Tiny said. Stan found it hard to look at the cars going past, but then it was even harder not to look. Frowning at the house instead, he said, “John not back?â€

“Nobody knows where he is,†Kelp said. =ortmunder always shows up,†Tiny said. Clearly, he didn’t want anything to deflect from his irritation. “Well, wherever he is, he’s better off than here,†Stan said. 1950 Healey Silverstone, white, the car Mrs. Hall most often drove, was next. Stan shook his head. “John wouldn’t like to see this,†he said. ["_Toc156052630"] 64 ONE GOOD THING ABOUTHal Mellon: his cell phone didn’t ring. When Chester drove him on his rounds, Mellon kept his cell phone in his shirt pocket, over his heart, set to vibrate rather than ring when he got a call. “Getting me ready for the pacemaker,†he said, which might have been another joke. But there was a different joke coming at Chester this sunny Saturday afternoon in June, though he didn’t know it yet. He knew Monroe Hall had been kidnapped from his compound yesterday, because theworldknew Monroe Hall had been kidnapped from his compound yesterday. He also knew they had grabbed the butler as well, but wouldn’t that be Dortmunder? He hoped Dortmunder would get himself away from those people, whoever they were, and he sure hoped the police presence at Hall’s compound wouldn’t screw up the grand theft auto planned for tonight. He didn’t want to be stuck in this car with Hal Mellon forever, Tuesdays through Saturdays, because, in Hal’s world, the managers he needed to schmooze with were likelier to be in the office on Saturday than Monday. “Young couple walking in a graveyard,†Mellon said. “Oops, hold on.†And he dove into his shirt pocket for his phone. Another couple, Chester thought, in another graveyard. Why don’t they spend thyard> Mellon murmured briefly into his phone, then broke the connection, pocketed the phone, and said, Кnceled the appointment, the son of a bitch. Who cares if he’s got pneumonia? I’ve got product to move. Ah, well.â€

Mellon looked at the dashboard clock, so Chester did, too: 3:24. Mellon sighed. “Let’s call it a day,†he said. “That was my last real appointment anyway, I was just gonna do drop-ins after that.†“Sure thing,†Chester said, and U-turned in front of two trucks, an ambulance, and a cement mixer. Mellon no longer blinked when Chester did things like that. Sitting back, half-smiling out the windshield as he took the vodka bottle from the pocket in the door, he said, xactly,†Mac said, and that took care of that. ["_Toc156052632"] 66 DORTMUNDER WAS DRINKING COFFEE, though what he would rather be drinking was anything that started with;.†But tonight was when, at long last, the heist would go down, and he should be at his quick-witted best for the occasion. Some time after midnight, with Tiny alone on guard duty at the entrance to the compound and with the cops gone from the place because the kidnapping was over and solved and done with, at last they could go in and get the goddamn cars and deliver them to the Speedshop. AndthenDortmunder could get out of Pennsylvania, back to New York, back to a cozy living room with his faithful companion, May, and drink everything in the house that started with;.†Something to look forward to. In the meantime, he was seated here in Chester’s living room, with Chester andhisfaithful companion, Grace, all of them drinking coffee and waiting for Dortmunder’s clothes to get here. Chester’s overcoat wasn’t bad, but it didn’t really fit all that well, and it was uncomfortable having to worry about your coat tails all the time. They- stopped watching television, because it was obvious the story was over, even though the newspeople were prepared to go on beating it into the ground for several hours yet. Monroe Hall had been kidnapped, then found, then found to have lost his memory. His butler had been kidnapped with him, and was now disappeared. One of the five kidnappers had been nabbed, one had skipped the country, and the other three would never be rounded up unless they put signs on their backs saying, “I did it.†So it was over, all except the swiping of the cars. Ding-dong. Ten minutes to six, and Dortmunder watched eagerly as Grace Fallon went over to open the door, though he didn’t stand yet, just in case this was somebody other than somebody with his clothes. But, no, here came Andy Kelp, with two suitcases, only one of them Dortmunder’s. And behind him Stan, with a suitcase. And behind him Tiny, with a duffel bag.

Dortmunder stood, coattails forgotten.›verybody?†he asked.:nd packed?†“It’s over, John,†Kelp said, and handed Dortmunder his suitcase. fee…th="1em" align="left">Dortmunder wanted to go to some other room and change into actual clothing, but he had to know: “Over? What’s over?†Stan answered,?orget the cars.†Dortmunder shook his head.?orget the cars? After all this? Why?†Stan said, Кuse they aren’t there any more.†Kelp said, “It was awful, John. We stood there and watched them go.†“On trucks,†Tiny said. He sounded as though the trucks themselves were an insult. Dortmunder said, “I don’t get it.†Chester said, “John, do us all a favor. Get dressed. Use our bedroom.†=on’t say anything till I get back,†Dortmunder warned them, and was gone a very short period of time, to come back dressed like a person, not like either a refugee or a butler. He said, “Okay, now what?†Kelp said, Кuse Monroe Hall lost his memory, his wife can’t get at the money he had stashed, so she’s selling everything.†“Starting with the cars?†“Turns out,†Kelp said, “Hall really didn’t own those cars. A museum does.†“That was a scam,†Chester said, “so he could keep the cars and not have to turn them over to the bankruptcy court.†Kelp said, “Well, it was a scam and it wasn’t a scam. This car museum in Florida really does own them all, but Hall got to keep them at his place. Now, with the situation like it is, the museum wants their cars. So today, they left.†Dortmunder said, “So that’s it? We plan, we prepare, we do everything right, and it’sover? Just like that?†Stan said, “There’s still some of that other stuff Arnie Albright said he- take.†Dortmunder shook his head. “I did not come here to load a car with music boxes,†he said. “I am not a pilferer, I got my dignity. If there’s no cars there, there’s no reason to go there.†Kelp said, “That’s why we all packed up and came over.†Tiny said, “I’m not going back to that place. If I did, I- break something.†Dortmunder sat down on the sofa, where he- been for so long in the overcoat. “I’ve been drinking coffee,†he said. Grace Fallon said, “I believe we have some bourbon.†“Thank you,†he said simply.

After getting concurring nods from everytingourom everybody else, she left the room and Stan said, “One drink, and we might as well drive back to the city.†?orever,†Chester said. “That’s how long I’m gonna listen to Hal Mellon’s jokes.†Dortmunder said, “You know, I’m beginning to realize what the worst of it is.†Kelp looked interested, but apprehensive. “There’s a worst of it?†“If we’re not pulling a heist here tonight,†Dortmunder told him, “you know what we’ve been doing the last three days? We’ve been havingjobs.†["_Toc156052633"] 67 SUNDAY AFTERNOON.ChuckYancey had never had to stand guard duty himself at the gate before, and he didn’t like it. It was demeaning. It was beneath him. And it was only necessary because Judson Swope had pulled a bunk. Out of here some time yesterday afternoon, never showed up for his midnight tour on the gate. Frantic last-minute calls in all directions, and finally they got Mort Pessle to fill in, but that meant Mort wasn’t available for his normal tour today. Shorthanded without Swope, Chuck Yancey found himself doing gate duty with Heck Fiedler. At least it gave him an opportunity to make Heck’s life miserable, but it was still a comedown. Also boring. There- never been much traffic through this entrance on weekends, and now that Mrs. H was shutting the place down, laying off everybody but Yancey and his crew, there was no traffic at all, not for the first six hours. But then, at five minutes to two, an unremarkable sedan turned in and stopped at the bar, and Yancey’s spirits rose for just a second, until he saw the occupants; the two plainclothesmen from CID, making such pests of themselves on Friday. Lieutenant Orville, who was driving, and the other one. Yancey stepped out of the shack to see what these two wanted-the case was over, wasn’t it?znd Orville said, “We want to talk to Fred Blanchard.†“I’ll see if he’s around,†Yancey said, because in truth he hadn’t seen anybody from the main house today. Back inside the shack, he called the main house and got no answer at all, then tried the house where Blanchard and Swope and a couple others were living and got the same result. Back outside the shack, he reported as much: “Nobody around.†Orville nodded as though some deep suspicion had been confirmed. “He’s been living here, hasn’t he?â€

“Until tomorrow, that’s right.†“We’ll want to see his place.†“I’ll have to escort you,†Yancey said, and called in to Heck, Ñ• right back.†Heck smiled and nodded, glad to see him go, and Yancey got into the backseat of the cops’ car to direct them to the green house, and along the way Orville, lo, an/p>…oking too often at Yancey in the mirror for somebody supposed to be steering a car, said, “You may wonder why I’m still after Fred Blanchard, what with Hall being found and the case over.†“I may,†Yancey agreed. “You may say,†Orville said, “that Lieutenant Orville, he’s just got his nose out of joint becausehedidn’t catch up with that Mark Sterling fella, but that would not be the case, would it, Bob?†«solutely not,†said the other one. “Mark Sterling just fell into their laps,†Orville explained. “I never even got alookat him. So that’s one of the kidnappers, but there’s at least four more. And don’t forget the butler.†“I won’t,†Yancey promised. :nd who did the butler used to work with, down in Washington, D.C.?†;lanchard,†Yancey told him. ›xactly! I didn’t trust Blanchard from the second I saw him. I knew he was hiding something, and I amgoingto find it.†When they stopped in front of the green house, it had an empty look to it even before they got out, hammered on the door, opened the door, stood in the living room, and yelled, “Hello?†“Nobody here,†Yancey said. “Which is Blanchard’s room?†“I would have no idea.†“Well, Bob, I guess we’ll search the whole place.†Yancey thought of mentioning warrants, but it was no skin off his nose. Nor, as it turned out, was it to be much of a search. The house had been stripped of all personal possessions. Nothing left but rumpled sheets and open closet doors. “So they all went,†Yancey said, as they trooped back down the stairs. Orville said,:ll?†“The new hires.†“The new hires!â€

“My security guy Swope, Blanchard, the new chauffeur, and the butler. Of course, the butler was already gone.†Orville said, “Withhis personal property?†“Well, somebody packed it up and took it away,†Yancey said, and the phone rang, echoing in the empty house. “I’ll get it,†Yancey said. “Probably Heck at the gate.†It was. “Got a guy here,†Heck said. “Old friend of Blanchard’s, wants to talk to him.†“We’ll be right there.†" The old friend of Blanchard’s didn’t look like anybody’s old friend. Tall and bony, he had yellow hair close-cropped like Yancey’s, but somehow looking more menacing on this bozo, and mean blue eyes that studied them as though they were meat and this was lunchtime. Before anybody else could speak, the bozo turned those eyes on Orville and the other one and said,?red Blanchard?†Yancey wondered why his right hand was up by his jacket lapel. It had seemed to Yancey the bozo had been asking which of the plainclothesmen was Blanchard, but maybe not. Orville hadn’t taken it that way, anyway, because he said, “So you’re an old friend of Blanchard’s, are you?†“Oh, yes,†the bozo said. He had some kind of accent that made him sound like a knife sharpener. “It has been too long since we have met.†Yancey said, “Lieutenant, he’s got a weapon under that jacket. Heck, stay behind him.†“Oh, yeah.†The bozo looked startled. “I have done nothing.†Orville might be slow, but he could catch up eventually, because all at once his own pistol was in his hand and he was saying, “Lieutenant Orville, CID. Put your hands on top of your head.†“I have done-†“Now!†“I shall go away,†the bozo suggested, but he did put his hands on his head. “I shall come back another time.†;ob, frisk him.†“No, I go away.†“Heck, shoot him in the leg if he takes a step toward the door.â€

“You bet!†So the other one frisked the bozo, and he turned out to have two loaded Glocks on him. Also three wallets, each with different ID, but all showing photos of this same guy. Orville could not have been happier. He was practically kissing himself on both cheeks. “I knew we- get to the bottom of it,†he chortled.:nd I knew, when wedidget to the bottom of it, we would find Fred Blanchard.†“I have diplomatic immunity,†the bozo said. “Not here you don’t,†Orville told him.;ut you’re a diplomat, are you? Bob, it’s that foreign embassy again.†“I think you’re right,†the other one said. Orville, suddenly even more excited, jabbed a finger at the bozo and said, “You and Fred Blanchard and the butler and your whole crowd, you probably killed the ambassador pro Cmba, too!†From the flinch the bozo gave, and the sudden skittery look in his eyes, Yancey guessed that, whether they were thinking of the same ambassador or not, in some way or another Orville was right. :ll right, my friend,†Orville told the bozo, “I’m taking you in for questioning, and before I’m done with you, you’ll spill everything you know about Fred Blanchard. Put the cuffs on him, Bob.†As the other one put the cuffs on the bozo, Orville looked out the guardshack window at the county road, but he was clearly seeing much farther. “I knew I was gonna get you, Fred Blanchard! You won’t hide from me! Nowhere on Earth, Fred Blanchard, will you be safe from Lieutenant Wilbur Orville! Let’s go, Bob. This is a wrap.†This file was created with BookDesigner program [email protected] 20/01/2008 LRS to LRF parser v.0.9; Mikhail Sharonov, 2006; msh-tools.com/ebook/ Table of Contents